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What kind of treatment is available for HIV?

The medications that we use to treat HIV are a class called antiretrovirals.
We have several different classes of the antiretrovirals that work at different stages of the HIV lifecycle.
So HIV first attaches to your immune system cells, we have medications that actually stop that. When it goes into the cell and reproduces its genetic material, we have a class of medication that works on that.
When it starts to bud out from the T-cell, kills the T-cell and then reproduces itself, we have areas where it can stop that as well. So it’s important to understand that there are different classes of these antiretrovirals but they all work in synergy to really help stop the virus at these different levels. And then it becomes more effective as a treatment overall.

Dr. David Malebranche, MD, MPH, a clinician-researcher specializing in HIV, gives the lowdown on all things HIV care and treatment in the latest installment of the #AskTheHIVDoc video series.

 

#AskTheHIVDoc is a video series from Greater Than HIV featuring top HIV doctors providing answers to commonly-asked questions about HIV prevention, testing and treatment.

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