HIV HAART Therapy

Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) means using three or more anti-HIV drugs that are from various classes. It helps to keep the virus suppressed or at a low level as two or more anti-HIV drugs work together for that. Doctors and scientist have found that HAART works effectively and helps to control HIV. In many cases, it is found that the viral load of HIV is so low that it may not be seen in the blood. This is referred as undetectable viral load. The therapy helps to suppress the replication process and thus slows the progression of HIV. The therapy includes different drugs like two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) and protease inhibitor (PI), two NRTIs and a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) or other such combinations.

HIV HAART Therapy

The treatment of HIV has developed in the last twenty years since the beginning of epidemic. There were no treatments in the past but now research has given us various treatment options that have evolved from treatment with single drug (AZT) to the advanced HAART therapy. HAART is described as a treatment with at least a combination of three anti-retroviral medications. It is also called as drug cocktail or triple therapy. As the therapy prevents the reproduction process of HIV, the body gets enough time for rebuilding the damaged immune system. It suppresses the virus load. It also allows the immune system to restock the CD4 cells. The researches that have been done on this therapy has clearly shown that the use of therapy decline the viral load as well as delay the progression of the virus. However, the remedial treatment is not available at this time. Once you stop HAART, the virus becomes detectable again in the blood.

Food and Drugs Administration has approved seven NRT's, three NNRTI's and six PI's that we can select from them. The combination of the drugs depends on the viral load as well as circumstances of patients' life because various ARV's often have to be taken at various times of the day with food or without food. It can be best made in conjunction with a health care worker. The other medication can be taken as per the CD4 cells' count. Those whose CD4 cells count is below 200 are susceptible to pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) and the drug trimethoprim- sulfamethoxazole prophylactically decreases the chances of developing this infection.

The therapy can fail, as sometimes the viral load develops only rapidly and at low levels. It is called as blips. This can happen if the viral load was counted while the person was ill or currently got a vaccine. People fail the treatment of HAART because of various reasons. The reasons can be not sticking to the treatment continuously, side effects of the medications, the progress of the HIV and increasing strength of the virus to the medication. As a result of these, the treatment has to be changed. The new treatment is called as salvage treatment.

HIV HAART Therapy is the combination of three or more anti-HIV drugs that belongs to different classes. The therapy is useful for treating HIV. It assists to prevent the infection and viral load in the blood. However, once a person gives up the therapy, HIV again appears in the blood.