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AIDS Treatment Length

HIV infection and AIDS are chronic illnesses for which there is no cure. There are effective treatments, however, to keep the HIV virus under control and give HIV-positive individuals a relatively normal life.

  1. Beginning Treatment

    • Treatment for HIV generally does not begin upon diagnosis. Most doctors will not begin antiretroviral treatment until the individual's CD4 immune cell count falls below 500 or sometimes even 200.

    Type of Treatment

    • Combination drug therapy is used to treat HIV infection and AIDS. The treatment generally combines two to four of the five classes of antiretroviral drugs to attack the virus.

    Length of Treatment

    • Once started, HIV and AIDS treatment must be continued for life. Blood tests are done at regular intervals to monitor viral load and CD4 count in order to judge whether the treatment is still working.

    Treatment Failure

    • The HIV virus can mutate and become resistant to some medications, resulting in treatment failure. The most common cause of these mutations is lapses in medication caused by missed doses.

    Second-Line Treatment

    • Treatment failure can cause entire classes of drugs to stop working for an individual. A new combination of drugs must be started each time treatment failure occurs, usually consisting of different classes.

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