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Exciting New Drug Available For People With HIV

Fri, 03/07/2009 - 1:06pm — admin

One of the greatest issues in the treatment of HIV is drug resistance. This happens when the internal structure HIV virus changes (mutates). This happens when HIV is not fully controlled by medication, usually during treatment breaks or when a resistant form of HIV is sexually transmitted from one person to another. These changes in HIV can reduce the ability of treatments to stop the virus from multiplying. The result is an increase in viral load and the risk of development of related health issues.

When HIV becomes resistant to one drug in a combination it can become resistant to the other drugs someone is taking. Sometimes people will need to change their entire combination. Choices can be reduced because of ‘Cross resistance’. When this happens HIV with resistance to one drug will sometimes automatically be resistant to other drugs. In certain situations HIV can even become resistant to a whole class or group of drugs.

Drugs used in HIV are usually called Treatments. HIV Treatments are divided into different groups or ‘classes’ according to the way in which they work against HIV. Some drugs prevent different stages of entry, other drugs block the various steps that HIV needs to go through inside a CD4 cell to reproduce itself and make new copies of HIV.

One of the more popular groups of drugs is the ‘‘Non Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors’ (NNRTI’s). This group blocks a specific enzyme (chemical) that HIV needs to copy itself. This group of drugs has been around for over 10 years and so far there are 3 drugs in this group.

The biggest problem with this group is that if HIV becomes resistant to one drug in this group then it will automatically be resistant to ALL of the drugs in this group. This reduces the choices for new combinations that might need to include older drugs that might carry a higher risk of side effects - that is until now.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) has just announced that it has approved a new generation drug in the NNRTI group. This new drug is effective against HIV even when people have ‘Class’ resistance to all of the drugs in the group. This new drug is called Intelence – which is the brand name or etravirine which is it’s generic name. All drugs have a brand name and a generic name, for example Panadol is a brand name and paracetamol is the generic name of Panadol.

This breakthrough represents great opportunities for people experiencing difficulties with their current combination. Intelence is only available to people who are treatment experienced that meet certain criteria. For further information people should see their treating HIV doctor.