HIV treatment

HIV treatment features

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  Treatment as prevention: Experts in the UK agree it works

  Roger Pebody summarises the statement released in January that should now guide how our doctors talk to us about treatment as prevention. ...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  It's tough to make predictions

  “Generic HIV drugs 'less effective',” said the BBC headline. The article continued: “Any rise in the use of cheaper, non-branded HIV drugs could see more patients with treatment...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  The generic generation

  In the next few years, some of the most widely used HIV drugs will come off patent in the UK. Gus Cairns asks: what are the...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Efavirenz and the brain: are we nearer to solving a mysterious side-effect?

  One of the most potent HIV drugs, efavirenz, unfortunately also causes mysterious and sometimes chronic disruptions of mood, thought and sleep. Researchers may have found the key to...

  From:  HIV treatment update

• Low levels of innate immune activation and high levels of gut antibodies may protect people from HIV

  Several research papers published in the last month have reported strong correlations between specific immune responses and protection against HIV infection or its effects. These include...

  From:  News

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  Switching drugs for cost reasons – the patient experience

  In April 2011, the London Specialised Commissioning Group (LSCG), which funds HIV treatment in the capital, issued a new set of messages to clinics on HIV drug...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Overhauling health: NHS reform, HIV and patient power

  The HTU guide to the NHS reforms, how they’ll affect you and how you can make the most of them. By Gus Cairns....

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Treatment: what really works best?

  The new edition of the HIV treatment guidelines from the British HIV Association (BHIVA) is now out for public consultation. HTU editor Gus Cairns was one of the...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  ART and TB prevention

  This edition explores what is known about the potential benefits and limits of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for TB prevention and control....

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  What will it take to put millions more South Africans onto antiretroviral therapy?

  “The rapid expansion of antiretroviral therapy (ART) programmes within a limited budget will require innovative and cost-effective approaches to service delivery,” Professor Yunus Moosa of the University of...

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

HIV treatment in your own words

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  Diagnosed far from home

  I still remember the very cold January morning; I was not listening to the pre-counselling, I thought it did not concern me. I just...

  From: In your own words

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  Peripheral neuropathy – the sting in the tail

  To begin: It is estimated that between 30% and 40% of HIV patients will develop neuropathy. In the United States alone, there are 20 million sufferers (from...

  From: In your own words

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  Living with peripheral neuropathy

  I didn’t know, at first, why my feet hurt so bad. I would wake up every 90 minutes or so every night. Because of the ‘way’ they...

  From: In your own words

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  Starting treatment wasn't as scary as I thought!

  I started learning about HIV treatment soon after I was first diagnosed. I had ‘the chat’ with someone, after I got my results – I...

  From: In your own words

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  Getting into the habit

  I try to take my HIV drugs at the same time every day, just before bed. I used to set an alarm on my mobile,...

  From: In your own words

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  Holiday hassles and HRT

  A much-needed holiday. Tickets, passports, driving licence – all go in my hand luggage. I leave the toiletry bag out till the last minute. I...

  From: In your own words

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  Jewelled friends

  I have a pretty little carved wooden pill box which I’d bought in Eureka, California. It holds my tablet set for the evening if I’m...

  From: In your own words

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  Headaches

  In October 2000 I arrived in the UK from Zimbabwe. I went to live in Bristol with my then partner. Things went okay, and I...

  From: In your own words

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  Starting treatment

  Following my HIV diagnosis in August 2001, my doctor estimated that I would be looking to start therapy in around six years. But following a...

  From: In your own words

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  Life on HIV treatment – a personal perspective

  I’ve been taking HIV treatment for ten years – that's longer than the average life expectancy of someone with HIV when I was diagnosed back in 1991. I’ve...

  From: In your own words

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  Finally undetectable!

  After almost 15 years of HIV, and six years of viral load testing, I heard on Thursday, June 21st 2001 that my viral load had...

  From: In your own words

HIV treatment news from aidsmap

• Expanded access to HIV treatment achieves big falls in mortality rates in China

  Mortality rates fell sharply among people receiving antiretroviral therapy in China between 2003 and 2009, investigators report in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. Overall, people were about 30% less likely to die in the ...

  23 May 2013 | Michael Carter

• AZT associated with poorer immunological recovery in people taking first-line HIV treatment in southern Africa

  AZT-based antiretroviral therapy is associated with lower increases in CD4 cell counts than other HIV treatment regimens, according to a study published in the online edition of AIDS. Investigators analysed immunological outcomes in over 72,000 people starting first-line treatment ...

  22 May 2013 | Michael Carter

• Some barriers to adherence for black African people in London are culturally specific

  Qualitative research suggests that some of the barriers to antiretroviral adherence for black African and black Caribbean people are culturally specific, while other barriers common to many other people with HIV – such as stigma – play out in ...

  23 April 2013 | Roger Pebody

• Life expectancy for South African patients who start HIV therapy with CD4 cell counts above 200 is 'near normal'

  HIV-positive patients in South Africa can have a near-normal life expectancy, provided that they start antiretroviral therapy promptly, investigators report in the open access journal PLoS Medicine. Individuals who started therapy when their CD4 cell count was above 200 ...

  15 April 2013 | Michael Carter

• Concentrations of HIV protease inhibitors increase with age

  Plasma concentrations of protease inhibitors increase with age, investigators from the United Kingdom report in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Each ten-year increment in age was associated with a significant increase in concentrations of protease inhibitors in plasma. In contrast, there ...

  05 April 2013 | Michael Carter

• Long-term suppression of viral load and sustained CD4 cell increase reduce risk of cervical HPV infection for HIV-positive women

  HIV therapy that achieves long-term suppression of viral load and sustained immune reconstitution reduces the risk of persistent cervical infection with high-risk strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), research published in the online version of the Journal of Infectious Diseases ...

  01 April 2013 | Michael Carter

• Almost three-quarters of people starting HIV therapy in Tanzania have dyslipidemia after three years of treatment

  Approximately 75% of HIV-positive patients in Tanzania had lipid abnormalities three years after starting antiretroviral therapy, research published in the online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases shows. The study involved 6385 people starting first-line HIV therapy in Dar ...

  28 March 2013 | Michael Carter

• People doing well on HIV therapy "should be eligible" for life insurance cover

  The long-term effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy means that many HIV-positive people should be eligible for affordable life insurance, European investigators write in the online edition of AIDS. Even though HIV-positive people doing well on treatment had a higher mortality risk compared ...

  22 March 2013 | Michael Carter

• Gene therapy studies show potential for HIV control without drugs

  Gene therapy approaches that involve the genetic modification of human haematopoietic stem cells have the potental to engineer HIV control by introducing cells resistant to HIV infection, the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections ...

  13 March 2013 | Gus Cairns

• Can people with resistant HIV omit NRTIs when switching from a failing regimen?

  Omitting nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) when switching from a non-suppressive regimen to a new combination with at least two active agents can reduce pill burden and side-effects without compromising effectiveness, researchers reported yesterday at the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections ...

  07 March 2013 | Liz Highleyman

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HIV treatment news selected from other sources

• Nyaope: dangerous drug, dangerous misconceptions

  Despite evidence that disproves the popular belief that antiretroviral (ARVs) drugs are an ingredient in nayope or “whoonga”, media coverage on the street drug continues to perpetuate this misconception.

  07 May 2013 | JournAIDS

• AIDS Healthcare Foundation Applauds WHO Decision to Initiate HIV Treatment Earlier

  World Health Organization (WHO) announced this week at Treatment as Prevention conference in Vancouver, Canada, that it will raise treatment initiation guidelines for HIV-positive individuals from a CD4 count of less than 350 to a count of less than 500.

  25 April 2013 | Wall Street Journal

• Doctors' historic effort to cure child with HIV and leukemia

  A University of Minnesota team performed an unprecedented transplant on Tuesday in an effort to cure a 12-year-old boy who has both HIV and leukemia. Their potential solution: umbilical cord blood containing a protein known to protect a person against HIV.

  25 April 2013 | MPR News

• Shortages of new one-a-day ARV pills in South Africa

  Just days into the rollout of fixed-dose combination (FDC) antiretrovirals (ARVs) by South Africa’s HIV treatment programme - the world's largest - activists are raising fears of drug shortages.

  22 April 2013 | IRIN

• South Africa: HIV patients still waiting for easier-to-take drugs

  Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced in December that fixed dose combination treatment would be in the 2013 HIV drug tender and become available in clinics in April. It is now 10 April and still most clinics in Khayelitsha do not have these pills.

  10 April 2013 | Ground Up

• South Africa rolls out new single dose AIDS drug

  South Africa's health minister on Monday launched a new single dose anti-AIDs drug which will simplify the world's biggest HIV treatment regime to just one life-saving pill a day. The tablet contains tenofovir, entricitabine and efavirenz.

  10 April 2013 | France 24

• New, intensive trials planned on heels of Mississippi HIV 'cure'

  A trial that involves drug cessation is fraught with ethical and medical difficulties, so the next steps going forward remain unclear. HIV specialists plan to meet over three days in May at a leadership retreat of the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials (IMPAACT) group to discuss how best to test if and when antiretroviral therapy can be halted for children born with HIV who achieve undetectable levels of the virus in their blood.

  08 April 2013 | Nature Medicine

• Breaking the Silence on My Struggle With HIV Meds

  Most days I forgot I even had HIV until it was time for me to take those pills. Then those days started to become more frequent. Then I started to resent those pills. For me those pills were a constant reminder that I AM LIVING WITH HIV.

  08 April 2013 | The Body

• The Case of the Baby ‘Functionally Cured’ of HIV: A Detective Story

  Was the famous baby really functionally cured of HIV, or was this just a case of post-exposure prophylaxis? Was the child infected at all? Is this actually the first cured baby? The skeptics want answers.

  02 April 2013 | Poz

• AIDS treatment Visconti’s coup

  If the common factor between so-called post-treatment controllers can be identified, it will allow doctors to offer treatment withdrawal to those likely to benefit from it. It will also show researchers a chink in AIDS’s armour. If they can find something which they can insert into that chink to clear the disease in other people, too, the Visconti trial may come to be seen as a turning point in the war on AIDS.

  15 March 2013 | The Economist

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