BASIC FACTS ABOUT HIV / AIDS :

What is HIV?

HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. It is the virus that causes AIDS. A member of a group of viruses called retroviruses, HIV infects human cells and uses the energy and nutrients provided by those cells to grow and reproduce.

What is AIDS?

AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. It is a disease in which the body's immune system breaks down and is unable to fight off infections, known as "opportunistic infections," and other illnesses that take advantage of a weakened immune system.

When a person is infected with HIV, the virus enters the body and lives and multiplies primarily in the white blood cells. These are immune cells that normally protect us from disease. The hallmark of HIV infection is the progressive loss of a specific type of immune cell called T-helper, or CD4, cells. As the virus grows, it damages or kills these and other cells, weakening the immune system and leaving the person vulnerable to various opportunistic infections and other
illnesses ranging from pneumonia to cancer. A person can receive a clinical diagnosis of AIDS, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), if he or she has tested positive for HIV and meets one or both of these conditions:

* The presence of one or more AIDS-related infections or illnesses;

* A CD4 count that has reached or fallen below 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood. Also called the T-cell count, the CD4 count ranges from 450 to 1200 in healthy individuals.

How quickly do people infected with HIV develop AIDS?

In some people, the T-cell decline and opportunistic infections that signal AIDS develop soon after infection with HIV. But most people do not develop symptoms for 10 to 12 years, and a few remain symptom-free for much longer. As with most diseases, early medical care can help prolong a person's life.

How is HIV transmitted?

A person who has HIV carries the virus in certain body fluids, including blood, semen, vaginal secretions, and breast milk. The virus can be transmitted only if such HIV-infected fluids enter the bloodstream of another person. This kind of direct entry can occur (1) through the linings of the vagina, rectum, mouth, and the opening at the tip of the penis; (2) through intravenous injection with a syringe; or (3) through a break in the skin, such as a cut or sore. Usually, HIV is transmitted through:

* Unprotected sexual intercourse (either vaginal or anal) with someone who has HIV. Women are at greater risk of HIV infection through vaginal sex than men, although the virus can also be transmitted from women to men. Anal sex (whether male-male or male-female) poses a high risk mainly to the receptive partner, because the lining of the anus and rectum is extremely thin and is filled with small blood vessels that can be easily injured during intercourse.
* Unprotected oral sex with someone who has HIV . There are far fewer cases of HIV transmission attributed to oral sex than to either vaginal or anal intercourse, but oral-genital contact poses a clear risk of HIV infection, particularly when ejaculation occurs in the mouth. This risk goes up when either partner has cuts or sores, such as those caused by sexually transmitted infections (STIs), recent tooth-brushing, or canker sores, which can allow the virus to enter the bloodstream.
* Sharing needles or syringes with someone who is HIV infected. Laboratory studies show that infectious HIV can survive in used syringes for a month or more. That's why people who inject drugs should never reuse or share syringes, water, or drug preparation equipment. This includes needles or \tsyringes used to inject illegal drugs such as heroin, as well as steroids. Other types of needles, such as those used for body piercing and tattoos, can also carry HIV.
* Infection during pregnancy, childbirth, or breast-feeding (mother-to-infant transmission). Any woman who is pregnant or considering becoming pregnant and thinks she may have been exposed to HIV-even if the exposure occurred years ago-should seek testing and counseling. In the U.S., mother-to-infant transmission has dropped to just a few cases each year because pregnant women are routinely tested for HIV. Those who test positive can get drugs to prevent HIV from being passed on to a fetus or infant, and they are counseled not to breast-feed.

Are there treatments for HIV/AIDS?

For many years, there were no effective treatments for AIDS. Today, a number of drugs are available to treat HIV infection and AIDS. Some of these are designed to treat the opportunistic infections and illnesses that affect people with HIV/AIDS. In addition, several types of drugs seek to prevent HIV itself from reproducing and destroying the body's immune system:

* Reverse transcriptase inhibitors attack an HIV enzyme called reverse transcriptase. They include abacavir, delavirdine, didanosine (ddl), efavirenz, emtricitabine (FTC), lamivudine (3TC), nevirapine, stavudine (d4T), tenofovir, zalcitabine (ddC), and zidovudine (AZT);
* Protease inhibitors attack the HIV enzyme protease and include amprenavir, atazanavir, fosamprenavir, indinavir, lopinavir, nelfinavir, ritonavir, saquinavir, tipranavir, and darunavir.
* Fusion inhibitors stop virus from entering cells. To date, only one fusion inhibitor, enfuvirtide, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Many HIV patients take these drugs in combination-a regimen known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). When taken as directed, anti-HIV treatment can reduce the amount of HIV in the bloodstream to very low levels and sometimes enables the body's immune cells to rebound to normal levels. Several drugs can be taken to help prevent a number of opportunistic infections including Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, toxoplasmosis, cryptococcus and cytomegalovirus infection. Once opportunistic infections occur, the same drugs can be used at higher doses to treat these infections, and chemotherapy drugs are available to treat the cancers that commonly occur in AIDS.

Researchers are continuing to develop new drugs that act at critical steps in the virus's life cycle. Efforts are under way to identify new targets for anti-HIV medications and to discover ways of restoring the ability of damaged immune systems to defend against HIV and the many illnesses that affect people with HIV. Ultimately, advances in rebuilding the immune systems of HIV patients will benefit people with a number of serious illnesses, including cancer, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and immune deficiencies associated with aging and premature birth.

Is there a cure for AIDS?

There is still no cure for AIDS. And while new drugs are helping some people who have HIV live longer, healthier lives, there are many problems associated with them:

* Anti-HIV drugs are highly toxic and can cause serious side effects, including heart damage, kidney failure, and osteoporosis. Many (perhaps even most) patients cannot tolerate long-term treatment with HAART.
* HIV mutates quickly. Even among those who do well on HAART, roughly half of patients experience treatment failure within a year or two, often because the virus develops resistance to existing drugs. In fact, as many as 10 to 20 percent of newly infected Americans are acquiring viral strains that may already be resistant to current drugs.
* Because treatment regimens are unpleasant and complex, many patients miss doses of their medication. Failure to take anti-HIV drugs on schedule and in the prescribed dosage encourages the development of new drug-resistant viral strains.
* Even when patients respond well to treatment, HAART does not eradicate HIV. The virus continues to replicate at low levels and often remains hidden in "reservoirs" in the body, such as in the lymph nodes and brain.

HIV / AIDS - FACTS A COMMON MAN MUST KNOW:

AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome it causes a destruction of the immune system. It is the most advanced stage of the HIV virus (HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus). AIDS is defined as the presence of a positive HIV antibody test and one or more of the illnesses known as opportunistic infections.

The HIV virus, type 1 or 2 is widely known to be the cause of AIDS. HIV breaks down and attacks your T cells so your body is unable to defend itself against different infections. The HIV virus also attacks your peripheral nervous system, this causes nerve and muscle pain, especially
in the feet, legs, and hands.

HIV is spread through direct contact with semen or blood of an individual that is infected. This can be transferred in many ways: the most common is unprotected sexual intercourse. Other means of HIV infection are infected blood transfusions, mother to infant (at time of birth, or through breast milk), sharing needles with an infected person, and rarely a healthcare worker that gets pricked with an infected needle.

Often people who are infected with HIV have few HIV symptoms and in some cases there are none. Other times, symptoms of HIV are confused with other illnesses such as the flu. This may be severe, with swollen glands in the neck and armpits, tiredness, fever and night sweats. This is
where as much as 9 out of 10 of the infected individuals will develop AIDS. At this point the person may feel completely healthy and not even know that he/she has the AIDS virus. The next stage begins when the immune system starts to break down and the virus becomes more aggressive in damaging white cells. Several glands in the neck and armpits may swell and stay swollen for an extended period of time without any explanation.

As this AIDS disease progresses boils or warts may spread over the body. They may also feel tremendously tired, night sweats, high fevers, chronic diarrhea, and they may lose a considerable amount of their body weight. Most AIDS cases have shown thrush as a symptom as well. At this point the person is in the final stages of HIV--AIDS. Severe chest infections with high fever are common and survival rate is above 70% but decrease with each recurrence.

A person is diagnosed with AIDS when he/she has one or more positive HIV screening and the presence of an AIDS defining condition. Some of the common conditions include but are not limited to: Meningitis, Encephalitis, Dementia, Pneumonia, Kaposi sarcoma, and Lymphoma. There is also a blood test called an Immune Profile that can be done. This test is used to measure the loss of immunity and help decide on the best treatment. There is a test that is rarely used due to its high cost, it is known as a Viral Load: This test detects the virus itself, and also measures the amount of HIV in the blood. It shows how quickly the HIV infection is likely to advance. A high viral load suggests that the person may progress rapidly to AIDS.

Although there is no cure for AIDS, there are medical treatments that aide in prolonging, and maintaining the best quality of life possible. These include two nucleoside inhibitors, lamivudine and zidovudine. Actual AIDS treatment plans will vary with each patient, along with the physical
aspect of this disease. The psychological side has to be addressed in order for an AIDS treatment plan to be effective. The easiest way to escape contracting this AIDS disease is to avoid the risk factors that you are in control of. Such as: unprotected sex, not sharing a needle, and if you are in the healthcare field be sure to use all precautions necessary to avoid an accidental prick from a possible infected needle (remember that in this diseases early stages it is common for the person not to even know they are infected).

HIV / AIDS SYMPTOMS:

HIV Symptoms?

HIV infection comes in three stages: acute infection, chronic infection, and AIDS.

Acute HIV infection is the earliest and shortest stage of HIV infection. Not everyone gets symptoms, but most people come down with a flu-like illness three to six weeks after infection. The symptoms are the same as flu or mononucleosis: fever and fatigue lasting for a week or two.

There may or may not be other symptoms:

A blotchy red rash, usually on the upper torso, that does not itch

Headache

Aching muscles

Sore throat

Swollen lymph glands

Diarrhea

Nausea

Vomiting

IMPORTANT: If you have been at risk of getting HIV and then come down with these flu-like symptoms, tell a doctor right away. Sensitive new tests can tell whether you have acute HIV infection. Treatment during the acute stage of HIV infection works much, much better than later treatment. Be sure to tell your doctor about your HIV risk. If you don't, you may not get the right tests. Standard HIV tests -- either home tests or lab tests -- won't detect acute HIV infection.

The body puts up a terrific struggle against HIV. At the end of this struggle, the body reaches a kind of standoff with the virus. This is chronic HIV infection, which begins three to six months after a person gets HIV. There aren't any symptoms. For most people, this stage of HIV infection lasts about 10 years.

Even though there are no symptoms, the immune system slowly runs down. A normal person has a CD4 T-cell count of 450 to 1,200 cells per microliter. When people with HIV have their T-cell counts drop to 200 or lower, they have reached the stage of AIDS.

What Are The AIDS Symptoms?

AIDS itself has no symptoms. Because the immune system is devastated, disease symptoms are specific to the kind of infections a person may have. When a person's T cells get very low, doctors prescribe drugs to prevent infections.

Sometimes people don't seek medical help until they have AIDS. They may have some of the following symptoms:

Being tired all the time

Swollen lymph nodes in the neck or groin

Fever lasting more than 10 days

Night sweats

Unexplained weight loss

Purplish spots on the skin that don't go away

Shortness of breath

Severe, long-lasting diarrhea

Yeast infections in the mouth, throat, or vagina

Easy bruising or unexplained bleeding

HIV TREATMENT - BREAKING NEWS

Selzentry Gets Approved - August 8, 2007

Over a month after receiving an ‘approvable’ letter from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Pfizer has announced that it has received accelerated approval for its oral entry inhibitor, Selzentry (maraviroc). According to the company’s press release, the drug will be widely available in US pharmacies by the middle of September.

Selzentry works by blocking HIV from attaching to a protein, called CCR5 or R5, on the surface of some immune system cells. Some HIV, called R5 HIV, uses this protein to enter and infect immune system cells. Other strains of HIV can use another receptor called CXCR4 (X4 HIV). People can also have HIV that can use either R5 or X4—which is called dual tropic—or a mixed population, called mixed tropic.

Selzentry is approved for use in combination with other anti-HIV drugs for people with R5-only HIV, and evidence of detectable viral replication and resistance to multiple HIV drugs. In order to receive the drug, people will have to take a blood test that can determine if their HIV is R5, X4, dual or mixed tropic. Currently, the only available test is the Trofile assay from Monogram. Though its price hasn’t been publicly announced, we believe it will be very expensive, ranging from $1400 for government programs (like ADAP) to over $2000 for people with private insurance.

The approval of Selzentry was based on data from two trials, called MOTIVATE 1 and 2, which compared Selzentry to a placebo, when combined with optimized background therapy (a combination of the best available anti-HIV drugs chosen by a physician based on treatment history and resistance testing). On average people taking Selzentry had reductions in HIV levels of almost 2 logs (around 99%) compared to around 1 log (90%) for people taking the placebo.
The most common side effects for people taking Selzentry were cough, fever, rash, stomach pain and dizziness. There have been a few reports of liver toxicity in people taking Selzentry, so people with liver disease or a history of liver problems should be monitored closely. Also, people with any history or dizziness when standing up (called postural hypotension) should exercise caution when starting Selzentry.

The use of Selzentry will be limited by the prevalence R5-only HIV among people with extensive treatment experience. Close to half of the people who were screened for the MOTIVATE trials were excluded because they had X4, dual or mixed HIV. Another recent study of Selzentry found it to be inferior to Sustiva (efavirenz) in people taking anti-HIV drugs for the first time.

Project Inform supports the approval of Selzentry. More options for people with drug-resistant HIV are badly needed by many. While the once sky-high expectations for this drug have been tempered somewhat, studies have shown that it is fairly potent and generally well tolerated. This is the first drug to target a component of the immune system rather than HIV itself. Further studies, as well as clinical experience will give us a better understanding of the longer term use of the drug.

Selzentry works best when combined with other active drugs. FDA approval of Merck’s integrase inhibitor, Isentress (raltegravir), is expected in October of 2007. It is currently available through an expanded access program. Also available in expanded access is Tibotec’s NNRTI, etravirine (TMC-125). Along with the PI Prezista (darunavir) approved late last year, this gives almost people with highly drug-resistant HIV their best opportunity yet to build a combination with multiple active drugs. Never before have so many potent new drugs been available at the same time.

WHAT IS HIV / AIDS ?

What is HIV?

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.
While many viruses can be controlled by the immune system, HIV targets and infects the same immune system cells that are supposed to protect us from illnesses. These are a type of white blood cell called CD4 cells. HIV takes over CD4 cells and turns them into virus factories that produce thousands of viral copies. As the virus grows, it damages or kills CD4 cells, weakening the immune system.

What is AIDS?

AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. AIDS is the most advanced stage of HIV infection. HIV causes AIDS by attacking the immune system’s soldiers – the CD4 cells. When the immune system loses too many CD4 cells, you are less able to fight off infection and can develop serious, often deadly, infections. These are called opportunistic infections (OIs) because they take advantage of the body's weakened defenses.

When someone dies of AIDS, it is usually opportunistic infections or other long-term effects of HIV infection that cause death. AIDS refers to the body’s immune-compromised state that can no longer stop OIs from developing and becoming so deadly.

What is the Difference Between HIV and AIDS?

You don't have AIDS as soon as you are infected with HIV. You can be HIV+ for many years with no signs of disease, or only mild-to-moderate symptoms. But without treatment, HIV will eventually wear down the immune system in most people to the point that they develop more serious OIs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines someone as having AIDS if he or she is HIV+ and meets one or both of these conditions:

- Has had at least one of 21 AIDS-defining opportunistic infections
- Has had a CD4 cell count (T-cell count) of 200 cells or less (a normal CD4 count varies by laboratory, but usually is in the 600 to 1,500 range)