A few years ago, receiving an HIV diagnosis is no longer synonymous with a death sentence. Today, the treatment of HIV it allows those who have contracted the virus to enjoy a healthy, quality life, as well as reducing the death rates due to the destruction of the immune system. This treatment, with antiretrovirals, guarantees the health of those with HIV. Check out the article and learn more.
How does HIV treatment work?
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Today, the HIV virus still has no cure and treatment is done using antiretrovirals, a combination of drugs with the power to interrupt the replication cycle of the HIV virus in the body human.
People on regular treatment are considered undetectable and at no risk of transmitting the virus. In addition, treatment with antiretrovirals is responsible for reducing the number of deaths of people infected with the HIV virus.
This is because the HIV virus causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, AIDS, which is the weakening of the human body's defense system.
The distinction is important, because not necessarily every person with the HIV virus will develop AIDS. The disease is caused due to the weakening of defense cells that allows the emergence of infections and other opportunistic diseases.
The function of antiretrovirals is to prevent HIV from replicating in the body and reaching CD4+ T cells, responsible for defending the human body against invaders - bacteria, fungi and others virus. In this way, the body can continue to produce CD4+ T cells and remain protected.
German cure stem cell transplant with HIV virus in the body
Attention turned to the issue of HIV after the news that a successful transplant with stem cells was responsible for curing the HIV virus in a man of German nationality.
Initially, stem cell transplantation was used to cure the patient, who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a kind of blood cancer. However, the transplant it also contributed to the cure of HIV, which remained at low levels in the boy's organism.
Today, the patient who received the diagnosis of HIV positive in 2011, no longer takes antiretroviral treatments, because there are no more remnants of the virus in his body.