HIV & AIDS Health Center
Expanding HIV and AIDS Drug Options
Today, HIV-positive people have many options for AIDS and HIV medication. These options include:
- Anti-HIV medications that treat HIV infection
- Drugs that treat side effects of the disease or HIV treatment
- Drugs that treat opportunistic infections that result from a weakened immune system
Researchers are continuing to develop many new types of AIDS and HIV medications.
HIV Drugs
The FDA has approved more than 25 antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV infection. They can help in these ways:
- Lower your viral load
- Fight infections
- Improve your quality of life
Even when these HIV medications are effective, however, you can still transmit HIV to others. They are not a cure for HIV.
A group of HIV specialists has developed guidelines for the use of these HIV medications. The current goals are to:
- Control the growth of the virus
- Improve overall immune system function and status
- Suppress symptoms
- Produce as few side effects as possible
To do this, doctors recommend that you take a combination of HIV drugs from at least two of the main classes. This combination is called highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). It helps combat new resistant strains of the virus that emerge as HIV makes copies of itself. HAART also decreases the rate of opportunistic infections.
If you are HIV-positive, you should begin HAART:
- If you have symptoms of HIV.
- If your CD4 cell count falls below 350, whether or not you have symptoms. CD4 cells -- also called T cells -- are a type of immune system cell.
These are five classes of HIV drugs.
1. Reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors help block an important step in the HIV life cycle. There are two types of RT inhibitors.
Nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) stall reproduction of HIV. They force the virus to use faulty versions of building blocks.
The FDA has approved these NRTIs:
| Brand Name | Generic Name | Abbreviation |
| Combivir | zidovudine + lamivudine | AZT + 3TC |
| Emtriva | emtricitabine | FTC |
| Epivir | lamivudine | 3TC |
| Epzicom | Abacavir + lamivudine | ABC + 3TC |
| Hivid | zalcitabine | ddC |
| Retrovir | zidovudine | AZT or ZDV |
| Trizivir | abacavir + zidovudine + lamivudine | ABC + AZT + 3TC |
| Truvada | tenofovir DF + emtricitabine | TDF + FTC |
| Videx | didanosine: buffered versions | ddl |
| Videx EC | didanosine: delayed-release capsules | ddl |
| Viread | tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (DF) | TDF or Bis (POC) PMPA |
| Zerit | stavudine | d4T |
| Ziagen | abacavir | ABC |
Non-nucleoside RT inhibitors (NNRTIs) bind to the RT protein. This disables it, keeping HIV from making copies of itself.
The FDA has approved these NNRTIs:
Efavirenz (Sustiva)
Nevirapine (Viramune)
Delavirdine (Rescriptor)
Etravirine (Intelence)
Edurant (rilpivirine)
The FDA also approved two one-pill, once-a-day products to treat HIV. Atripla combines three different RT inhibitors (efavirenz + tenovir DF + emtricitabine). And Complera is a combination of Truvada (which combines the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors Emtriva and Viread) and the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor Edurant.
WebMD Medical Reference
