AIDS Information

HIV Medications

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 AIDS Overview

AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

AIDS is caused by a virus called HIV—Human Immunodeficiency Virus. If you get infected, your body will try to fight the infection by producing "HIV antibodies." These are special molecules that fight HIV in your body. The antibodies are what HIV blood tests detect. If you have the antibodies in your blood, it means you have the HIV infection and you are "HIV-positive."

Being positive for HIV isn’t the same as having AIDS. You may have HIV but not get sick for many years. HIV slowly wears down the immune system. This wearing down makes an HIV patient prone to many diseases that a non-infected person’s immune system would abolish. These diseases that result from a lack of immune support are called "opportunistic infections (OI’s)."

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 Transmission

Bodily fluids able to carry the virus…

• blood
• vaginal fluid
• semen
• breast milk

Transmission can occur by…

• having sex with an infected person
• sharing a needle with an infected person
• being born by a mother who is infected
• drinking breast milk of an infected woman

You can get HIV if you get injected blood or sexual fluids into your body. You cannot get it from mosquito bites, coughing, sneezing, sharing household items or swimming in the same pool as an infected person.. No documented cases have been caused by sweat or saliva.

Getting a blood transfusion from an infected donor used to be a way that people got AIDS. However, now donated blood is so well screened that the risk is extremely low.

There are no documented cases of transmission by tears, but you can catch the virus through oral sex or kissing, especially if you have open sores in your mouth or on your gums.

You might not know if you get infected with HIV because some people have no symptoms. However, the virus will multiply in your body for a few weeks or even months before your immune system responds. During this period of time, you will not test positive for HIV but can infect others.

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 HIV or AIDS?

HIV disease becomes AIDS when your immune system is so damaged that you have less than 200 CD4⁺ cells (cells in your body that are an important part of the functioning of the immune system) or when you get an opportunistic infection.

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 HIV Testing

HIV testing is the process done to determine whether or not you are infected with the HIV virus. These tests look for "antibodies" to HIV. You can arrange for HIV testing at any Public Health office or at your doctor’s office. These test results are accurate greater than 99.5% of the time.

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 Illicit Drug Use
 and HIV

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One major cause of infection with HIV is the use of illicit drugs. This is not only because of the frequent use of needles utilized by other drug users, but also because of the mental clouding that occurs with the effects of the drug that could allow a person to become careless when choosing sexual partners.

Shared equipment can spread HIV, hepatitis, and other diseases. To protect yourself, never re-use any equipment for injecting drugs. Also, mixing recreational drugs and HIV medications can be dangerous.

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 Opportunistic
 Infections (OI's)

Some common OI’s are candidiasis (thrush), Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Herpes Simplex Virus (cold sores or genital herpes), Mycobacterium avium complex, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, Toxoplasmosis (infection of the brain), and tuberculosis (infection of the lungs that can cause meningitis). The list of possible opportunistic infections is very extensive. These are only a few.

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 Treatment for HIV
 and AIDS

1. Protease Inhibitors
2. Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors

1. Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors
2. Non-nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors

Protease Inhibitors block the protease enzyme. This enzyme’s function is to cut protein strands into the parts needed to assemble the virus. Therefore, when protease is blocked, the new viral particles can not mature. These drugs include…

-Saquinavir (Invirase or Fortovase)

-Ritonavir (Norvir)

-Indinavir (Crixivan)

-Nelfinavir (Viracept)

-Amprenavir (Agenerase)

-Kaletra (lopinavir + ritonavir)

-Reyataz (atazanavir)

-Lexiva (fosamprenavir)

Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors stop HIV from multiplying by blocking the reverse transcriptase enzyme. This enzyme changes HIV genetic material into DNA. This step must occur in order for the virus’s genetic code to get combined with an infected cells own genetic codes.

Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors mimic the building blocks use by reverse transcriptase. Non-nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors physically prevent the reverse transcriptase89 enzyme from working.

Drugs include…

Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors:

-Didanosine (Videx, ddI)

-Lamivudine (Epivir, 3TC)

-Stavudine (Zerit, d4T)

-Zidovudine (Retrovir, AZT)

-Avacavir (Ziagen)

-Combivir (zidovudine + lamivudine)

-Trizivir (abacavir +zidovudine + lamivudine)

-Hivid (zalcitabine)

-Viread (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate)- Nucleotide Reverse transcriptase inhibitor

-Emtriva (emtricitabine)

Non-nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors:

-Nevirapine (Viramune)

-Delavirdine (Rescriptor)

-Efavirenz (Sustiva)

Entry Inhibitors (Including Fusion Inhibitors: entry inhibitors work by preventing HIV from entering healthy T-cells

-Fuzeon (enfuvirtide)

NEW DRUGS BEING CREATED

-cytokines—phase II and III trials

-vaccine-like treatments—phase III trials

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 Hotline

 Websites

National AIDS Hotline:  (800) 342-2437

http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/

http://www.aidsmeds.com/