Treatments

Information Line | Antibodies | HIV FAQ | Transmission | Treatments

What treatments are available?

Combination therapy is the main treatment available today to fight against HIV infection. This therapy consists of 2 or more different types of antiretroviral medications given in combination. Combination therapy has been available in Australia since September 1996. There are also medications that are given to boost the immune system and prevent infections that a weakened immune system could be vulnerable to.

How does combination therapy work?

The aim of antiretrovial therapies is to impair HIV's ability to reproduce. There are several stages that HIV goes through during replication. There are four different classes of antiretroviral medications; non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, fusion inhibitors and protease inhibitors, which target three specific steps during the HIV replication sequence. Thus, by impairing HIV reproduction and therefore ability to infect and destroy the immune system’s helper cells, the amount of damage to a person's immune system is reduced. There are also medications that are given to boost the immune system and prevent infections that a weakened immune system would be vulnerable to.

What is viral load?

Viral load is a measure of the amount of HIV present in the blood. The monitoring of a person's viral load is used for HIV management, as the level of HIV can be an indicator of a person's health status, disease progression and effectiveness of treatments.

Generally, HIV positive people with high viral loads are more likely to be susceptible to or experience infections/disease than those with a low or non-detectable viral load. A non-detectable viral load means that HIV has fallen below levels detectable by the test used but a person is still infected with HIV and is still infectious.

What are healthy levels of CD4 cells and viral load?

The CD4 cell count gives a rough guide to the health of a person's immune system.

• More than 500 are considered to show no or little immune system damage
• Between 250 and 500 is considered to show moderate immune system damage
• Less than 250 is considered to show severe immune system damage and indicates a susceptibility to serious opportunistic infections

A viral load count indicates the levels of HIV present in blood. The lower the count the less active HIV is in the body.

• 50,000 or more viral copies are considered high
• 10,000 - 50,000 copies moderate
• Less than 10,000 copies low
• Below 50 copies is called 'undetectable'

The aim of treatments is to get to “undetectable” and maintain that reading for as long as possible.

Albion Street Centre
150 - 154 Albion Street Surry Hills NSW 2010 Australia
Telephone: +61 2 9332 9600 Fax: +61 2 9331 3490