HIV infection

Alternative names:

human immunodeficiency virus infection

Treatment:

Drug therapy is recommended for patients who are committed to taking all their medications and have a CD4 count less than 500 (indicating immune system suppression) or a viral load (amount of HIV virus in the bloodstream) greater than10,000 copies. It is extremely important that patients take all doses of their medications, otherwise the virus will rapidly become resistant to the medications. Therapy is always given with a combination of antiviral drugs (usually a three-drug combination using two nucleoside drugs and a protease inhibitor or the drug efavirenz). People with HIV infection need to receive education about the disease and treatment so that they can be active partners in decision making with their health care provider.

Support group:
The stress of illness can often be helped by joining a support group where members share common experiences and problems. See AIDS - support group.

Expectations (prognosis):

HIV is a chronic medical condition that can be treated but not yet cured. There are effective means of preventing complications and delaying, but not preventing, progression to AIDS. At the present time, not all persons infected with HIV have progressed to AIDS, but time has shown that the vast majority do.

Complications:

• opportunistic infections
  • pneumocystis carinii pneumonia
  • candidiasis
  • cytomegalovirus infection
  • toxoplasmosis
  • cryptococcus[hyperlink]
  • cryptosporidium enterocolitis
  • mycobacterium avium complex (MAC)[hyperlink]

Calling your health care provider:

Call for an appointment with your health care provider if you have had a possible or actual exposure to AIDS or HIV infection.

Update Date: 02/09/00
Updated by: J. Gordon Lambert, MD, Associate Medical Director, Utah Health Informatics and adam.com editorial