Challenges in Antiretroviral Therapy

Phil Johnson, M.D. discusses why it's so important for HIV/AIDS patients to follow their antiretroviral (ARV) medication regimen as prescribed. During active infection, up to 10 billion HIV particles will be created each day. This provides ample chance for the virus to mutate in ways that provide resistance to the medication. By keeping the blood levels of the ARV medication high, that will keep the viral load low and reduce the opportunity for resistance mutations to flourish. When HIV develops resistance to one medication, it may develop resistance to other ones at the same time. Patients may also have to deal with side effects such as the redistribution of fat in the body and increases to their cholesterol level. Not every patient can tolerate every ARV. Therefore, it's critical for patients to make every ARV last as long as possible. When people with resistant HIV have unprotected sex, they may transmit resistant HIV to their sex partners, meaning the newly infected person will have far fewer treatment options. Genetic testing of the virus can be used to determine which medications the patient's particular strain(s) will be resistant to. Visit http://www.GlobalLifeworks.org and http://AIDSvideos.org to learn more. [Do you want to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS? Are you fluent in a language other than English? Then volunteer to translate a video into another language! Click http://AIDSvideos.org/translate.shtml to learn how you can help!!!]