Friday, May 6, 2011

HIV AIDS Treatment

The word #AIDS is the acronym of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. It is a contagious disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus generally known as #HIV. There are two  different types of  HIV virus, which are  HIV-1 and HIV-2, both of which eventually cause AIDS. This disease damages the  immune system, HIV prohibits with the body's power to fight with the organisms that cause different diseases. HIV can be transmitted by sexual contact. It can also be spread by contact with infected blood, or from mother to child throughout pregnancy, childbirth or breast-feeding. It may take many  years before HIV affects your immune system to the diagnosis that you have AIDS. Even in this modern era there is no remedy for HIV/AIDS, but there are few drugs that can dramatically slow the progressiveness of the disease. These drugs have  decreased AIDS deaths in many  advance countries. But HIV continues to abolish people in the regions like Africa, Haiti and some parts of Asia.

Treatment options of HIV / AIDS

  • Antiretroviral Drugs
There is no treatment for HIV/AIDS, but a range of drugs can be used in combination to control the virus. Each of the classes of antiretroviral drugs obstruct the virus in several ways. It's best to combine at least three drugs from two different classes to avoid creating strains of HIV that are immune to single drugs. The classes of antiretroviral drugs are arranged into five major drug categories which are as follow.

  • Reverse Transcriptase (RT)
Reverse transcriptase Inhibitors usually intervene with the acute step during the HIV lifecycle known as reverse transcription. At this step, the HIV enzyme RT changes HIV RNA to HIV DNA. There are two major kinds of RT inhibitors which are.

1. Nucleoside/nucleotide RT inhibitors
Nucleoside/nucleotide RT inhibitors are incorrect DNA building blocks. When these incorrect pieces are associated  into the HIV DNA (during the process when HIV RNA is changed to HIV DNA), the DNA chain cannot be consummated, thereby blocking HIV from multiplication  in a cell).

2. Non-nucleoside RT inhibitors

Non-nucleoside RT inhibitors bind to RT, destroying its ability to change the HIV RNA into HIV DNA.
  • Protease Inhibitors
Protease Inhibitors intervene with the protease enzyme that HIV uses to build infectious viral particles.
  • Fusion/Entry Inhibitors
Fusion/Entry Inhibitors intervene with the virus' ability to combine with the cellular membrane, thereby obstructing entry into the host cell.
  • Integrase Inhibitors
Integrase Inhibitors block integrase, the enzyme HIV uses to combine the genetic material of the virus into its target host cell.
  • Multi drug Combination Products
Multi drug Combination Products accumulate drugs from more than one category into a distinct product. To fight with virus strains from becoming resistant to particular antiretroviral drugs, health care providers recommend that people suffer from HIV take a combination of antiretroviral drugs known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Developed by NIAID-supported analyzers.

HIV treatment plan may involve taking several pills at particular times every day for the rest of  the life. Side-effects can consist.
  • Nausea, vomiting or diarrhea
  • Abnormal heartbeats
  • Shortness of breath
  • Skin rash
  • Weakened bones
  • Bone death, particularly in the hip joints
Feedback to any treatment is judged by the viral load and CD4 counts of the victim. Viral load should be examined at the beginning  of treatment and then every three to four months while patient is undergoing therapy. CD4 counts should be observed every three to six months. HIV treatment should decrease the viral load of the victim to the point that it's undetectable. That doesn't mean that HIV has gone. It just means that the analysis  is not sensitive enough to find it. Victim can still transmit HIV to others when viral load of the victim is undetectable.

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