Treating HIV throughout the body
In order to effectively control HIV, the virus must be suppressed in all parts of the body, not just in the blood where viral load is usually measured. Although some HIV resides in CD4 cells circulating in the bloodstream, it can also hide in the lymph nodes, gut, brain, testicles and other ‘reservoirs’ elsewhere in the body.
This is an important treatment issue because some drugs do not penetrate into these other ‘compartments’, thus allowing HIV to continue to replicate. Having a viral load below 50 copies/ml in the blood does not necessarily mean the virus is also undetectable elsewhere in the body. Even if HIV is suppressed in the blood, the virus can escape from these other areas and start the replication cycle all over again.
latest aidsmap news
- Unsuccessful post-exposure prophylaxis may still result in weaker HIV infection and lower viral load
- Jury still out on whether circumcision protects gay men against HIV
- Antiretroviral therapy does not fully reverse impact of HIV on hepatitis C-related cirrhosis
- High early mortality after starting antiretroviral treatment in Africa
- Nobel prize awarded to French discoverers of HIV
- Fall in number of undiagnosed HIV infections in the US
- Resistance to darunavir related to pre-existing mutations
- Higher levels of drug resistance seen after first-line NNRTI failure than boosted PI failure: meta-analysis
- Wide variation found in anal HPV viral loads in HIV-positive men
- Offering rapid point-of-care tests would increase uptake of HIV testing