AIDS and HIV Medicines – Broadening Horizons – Part I

Nowadays, HIV infected persons have a myriad of medication choices for AIDS and HIV. Those alternatives comprise of:

• HIV-combatant medicines.
• Drugs for allaying side effects arising either due to the disease or the treatment.
• Drugs for treating opportunistic infections occurring due to the outcome of an undermined immune system.

Scientists are in the continual process of developing several new-fangled forms of AIDS and medicines for HIV.

HIV-Combatant Medicines

The FDA or Food and Drug Administration have given its stamp of approval for greater than twenty-five anti-retroviral medicines for HIV treatment that could be beneficial in the following ways:

• Lowering the load of the viral infection.
• Combating infections.
• Improving QOL or quality of life.

Despite the high-effective quotient of these HIV-combatant medicines, they still do have the capacity of stopping person-to-person HIV transmission and are by no means a HIV cure.

An assemblage of HIV professionals has created certain guidelines for the usage of these HIV-combatant medicines. The existent targets comprise of:

• Inhibiting viral growth.
• Suppression of symptoms.
• Producing the least possible side effects.

In order to accomplish this, doctors are advocating the combo intake of HIV-combatant medicines that belong to at least 2 of the main groups. This grouping is known as the highly active anti-retroviral therapy or HAART. This aids in combating constantly evolving, novel, resistant HIV viral strains. HAART also lowers the speed of opportunistic infections.

If one is infected with HIV, then one must ideally get started on HAART if:

• One is showing sign and symptoms of HIV.
• If the level of CD4 cell count (a form of immune system cell) dips lower than 350 irrespective of being symptomatic or not.

There are 3 key groups of HIV-combatant medicines.

Reverse transcriptase or RT inhibitors -

aid in hindering a crucial step in the lifecycle of HIV. There are two forms of RT inhibitors, namely.

• Nucleoside or Nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors or NNRTI: It is known to attach to the RT protein obstructing the HIV from duplicating itself.

The FDA-approved NNRTIs are as follows:

• Non-nucleoside RT inhibitors or NRTIs – halt HIV replication. They compel HIV to employ flawed editions of building blocks.

The FDA-approved NRTIs are as follows:

During July 2006, FDA additionally gave approval for the foremost of its kind, the single pill, once during a day dosage for HIV treatment. The pill was known as Atripla has a triple-combo of varying RT inhibitors namely efavirenz, tenovir DF and emtricitabine.

Protease inhibitors or PI :

impedes the enzyme that HIV employs for creating contagious viral units.
The FDA-approved PIs are as follows:

Entry orfusion inhibitors –

aid in blocking the ingress of HIV into healthy tissues. During this instance, Fuzeon generically known as enfuvirtide is the solitary medicine that has received FDA approval.

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