AIDS begins with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. As the virus progresses and enters its last stage, it becomes AIDS, or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. While HIV makes a person more susceptible to infections, AIDS is life-threatening, the stage in which many lose their lives.
The Mayo Clinic estimates that 39.5 million people worldwide currently live with HIV. With proper treatment, the infected may enjoy the same quality of life as prior to their infection. In most, if not all cases, treatment is comprised of a combination of medications. While effective, patient compliance plays a large role in treatment success.
History
TheBody.com explains that in 1981, the publication Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report, a creation of the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention, began reporting about an increase in a rare disease among gay men in New York and California. The disease was HIV.
Five years later, in 1986, the FDA approved the first antiretroviral drug to prevent the virus from replicating itself. The name of the drug is zidovudine, better known as AZT. In the last two decades through the miracle of medical science, more than 20 drugs have become available for the treatment of this disease.
Significance
Although HIV has been in existence for more than 20 years and is a priority for the medical community, a cure for this disease evades scientists and medical professionals. It is for this reason that HIV treatment is crucial. While the use of combination therapy, or multiple antiretroviral drugs at one time, has not met the success goals set by scientists, according to The Body, this therapy has contributed greatly to them decline in deaths from this disease. HIV treatment not only helps restore a person's health when death from this disease appears imminent, it also reduces the amount of HIV-related infections and complications.
Function
KidsHealth.com explains that the drugs available for HIV treatment serve three purposes. The first is to interfere with the viruses ability to reproduce its own genetic material. The second is to interfere with the enzymes the virus needs to overtake new cells in the body. Finally, these drugs inhibit the ability of the virus to create a viral code of its genetic material; without a code to follow, the virus cannot reproduce itself within the body. These combined goals achieve important outcomes: slowing the progression of HIV, reducing the number of complications from this disease and extending the life of the patient while improving quality of life.
Types
Since the approval of AZT in 1986, a number of HIV drugs have become available. Among them are nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, which prevent the production of the DNA that HIV needs to multiply.
For HIV to spread and infect healthy cells, it must have shorter strands of DNA. Protease inhibitors, according to Arthur Schoenstadt, M.D., of eMedTV.com, stop protease enzymes from creating shorter strands of DNA.
Entry inhibitors are fairly new and help slow the progression of HIV by preventing it from entering human cells, while the newest drugs of all---integrase inhibitors---block the integrase enzyme. The virus relies on this enzyme to help infected DNA insert itself into human DNA, thus preventing HIV from making new copies of itself.
Warning
Patients' adherence to their HIV treatment plans is crucial. Should patients not take their medications as the doctor prescribes, all day every day, they run the risk of the virus becoming resistant to that particular medication combination. Ultimately this means that HIV will begin reproducing and taking over the body. If this cycle of non-compliance continues with each new combination of treatments, the patient eventually runs out of treatment options.
