How Does HIV Treatment Work?

How Does HIV Treatment Work?

Antiretroviral therapy works by blocking the multiplication of HIV in the cells. In most cases, patients must take at least three antiretroviral drugs for the therapy to work. In addition, a very important part of antiretroviral therapy is that the medications must be taken 100% of the time.

This point cannot be emphasized enough. Patients taking antiretroviral therapy must be committed to taking 100% of their medications. Taking medications incorrectly can lead to the development of viral resistance. Once the virus becomes resistant to certain medications, those drugs will never work against the virus again. Patients should do everything possible to prevent the development of viral resistance.

When antiretroviral therapy is taken correctly, the patient's viral load becomes undetectable. This means that, although HIV is still present in the blood, it is in very low amounts, below the ability of blood tests to detect it. When the virus is undetectable, we say that it is "suppressed." The goal of HIV therapy is to get virus levels undetectable, because when the virus is undetectable, HIV disease progression slows or stops completely.