Can HIV be treated with medication?

how? is the treatments easy to use? IS it affordable? is it commonly available worldwide?

it can keep the person healthy longer, but not cure it. the treatment is supposedly painful, long, with lots of pills and hospital stays... and it is very, very expensive. its still experimental as far as i know. and it is not available to very many people.

no

it involves many many drugs, something like twenty or thirty pills at a time. it cannot be treated, but it can be controlled, and it will slow the progression from HIV to AIDS greatly. many people with HIV live a long life, although not as healthy as an HIV negative person, but a good life. However, I believe that it's very expensive, but some health insurances can pay for that. It is commonly available in the US and other developed nations, however, third world countries without the medical abilities available nessecary do not usually have a supply on hand.

Anti-viral drugs are available to be taken prophylactically if a medical worker is exposed to the virus via a needlestick injury etc. There are a mixture of drugs used on a patient once they are HIV + but none are 'treatments' in the context that they cure, rather they try and alleviate symptoms and other conditions which those who are immunocompromised face. Fingers crossed research continues in this area and medications improve so one day there is an effective cure.

Currently, there are 30 antiretroviral drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat people infected with HIV. These drugs fall into four major classes.

=Reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors interfere with the critical step during the HIV life cycle known as reverse transcription. During this step, RT, an HIV enzyme, converts HIV RNA to HIV DNA.

There are two main types of RT inhibitors.
Nucleoside/nucleotide RT inhibitors are faulty DNA building blocks. When these faulty pieces are incorporated into the HIV DNA (during the process when the HIV RNA is converted to HIV DNA), the DNA chain cannot be completed, thereby blocking HIV from replicating in a cell.
Non-nucleoside RT inhibitors bind to RT, interfering with its ability to convert the HIV RNA into HIV DNA
.
=Protease inhibitors interfere with the protease enzyme that HIV uses to produce infectious viral particles.
=Entry and fusion inhibitors interfere with the virus' ability to fuse with the cellular membrane, thereby blocking entry into the host cell.
=Integrase inhibitors block integrase, the enzyme HIV uses to integrate genetic material of the virus into its target host cell.
Multidrug combination products combine drugs from more than one class into a single product

Currently available drugs do not cure HIV infection or AIDS. They can suppress the virus, even to undetectable levels, but they cannot eliminate HIV from the body. Hence, people with HIV need to continuously take antiretroviral drugs-
HIGHLY ACTIVE ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY (HAART)

People infected with HIV have impaired immune systems that can leave them susceptible to opportunistic infections. This therapy allows the immune system to recover, sustain, and protect the body from other infections. Hence, antiretroviral drugs provide a way for the immune system to remain effective, thereby improving the quality and length of life for people with HIV.


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The drugs are expensive and availability varies for the haves and have-nots in Thailand. and India. Of the millions of HIV infected individuals in the world, more than 90% live in developing countries of Africa and Asia. In India alone in year 2006, an estimated 5.7 million people have HIV/AIDS that is more than any other country in the world. Almost every state in India has reported HIV cases.


Generic manufacture of drugs in developing nations has led to price reductions of HAART and has made these drugs accessible to the poor patients suffering from HIV/AIDS. However there are several concerns among pharmaceutical companies and the medical community regarding the proper manufacturing and distribution of such antiretroviral drugs.

You really need to talk to a doctor about this problem. I fear on this website you will only get a bunch of well meant misinformation.

there is not cure but the drugs are getting good enough that they can keep the virus under control for decades. treatments are getting easier, originally people would have to take many many pills per day but now most people only have to take a couple. in the US, it probably costs $5-20,000 per year but most states have programs that pay the bulk of the cost for people that need help