HIV treatment

Drug treatments for HIV offer many people the chance to control the virus and stay healthy for much longer. Treatment options have had a huge impact on the lives of people with HIV and those who care for them. They can reduce AIDS-related illnesses, admissions to hospital and death rates. Treatment has also enabled some people with HIV to go back to work and plan for the future.

HIV drug treatment is known as combined antiretroviral therapy (CAR) or, sometimes, highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Treatments do not work equally as well for everyone. They can have side effects and some people develop what is called drug resistance. Drug treatment does not prevent transmission of the virus.

Types of treatment
There are five main groups of drugs involved:

  • Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs)
  • Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs)
  • Nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors
  • Protease inhibitors
  • Fusion inhibitors.

Usually, three different drugs from at least two of these groups are taken together, two to four times a day. Some tablets now contain two or three different drugs. The advantage of these combination drugs is that people do not need to take as many tablets each day.

How treatment works
When the HIV virus gets into a body cell, it generally starts to make copies of itself. These copies then spread out of that cell and into another. Drug treatments control the virus by interfering with the chemicals it uses to make copies of itself inside the body cells. The fusion inhibitors stop the HIV binding onto a new cell so it can no longer enter.

Over time, the virus can become resistant to the drugs, which means that they won’t work as well. The treatment may then have to be changed to a different combination of drugs.

People taking drug treatment for HIV will probably need to take it for the rest of their lives. Stopping drug treatment, even for short periods of time, can cause the virus to become resistant to those drugs. It is not recommended that anyone interrupt drug treatment without medical advice.

Drug treatment does not work well for everyone. Even when it is working well, it cannot control all of the virus, so the person will still have HIV in their body.
Treatment does not stop someone with HIV from being able to pass on the virus through unprotected sex or sharing needles or injecting equipment.