Aids is one of the diseases that threatens the world because for a very long time it stood out without any kind of possible treatment, when someone gets infected with this virus it is only a matter of time before he or she is dead. AIDS is known to transmit through different ways, it could be transmitted sexually, mother – fetus barrier and blood transfusion.
Nowadays, scientists came out with a new group of medications that is called the antiretroviral drugs. This special group of antiviral drugs is known to control the virus and lower its titer in blood of patient so the patient is able to leave for a long time while maintaining daily dosage of the antiretroviral drug.
There are different types of antiretroviral drugs which are nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, non – nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, protease inhibitor, entry inhibitor and integrase inhibitor. Each one of these drugs is intended to control the HIV or AIDS virus in a special way. For example, nucleoside and non – nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors tend to inhibit the special protein needed by the virus to multiply. While entry inhibitors intend to prevent the virus from infecting healthy immune cells.
Antiviral drugs are not a single dose treatment because if one drug is administered alone it may develop resistance and became of no effect at all and because of that fact, doctors tend to give a combination therapy. The combination therapy always starts with one or two nucleoside reverse transcriptase with one non nucleoside, a protease booster. In some cases all these pills are combined in one pill and are called the fixed dose antiretroviral treatment. The antiretroviral drugs should be given to the patient only with close monitoring to know whether the treatment is getting the required results or should be changed. The dose should be calculated precisely because an overdose could be of very bad results.
The problem that prevents the antiretroviral drugs from spreading all over the world especially in the developing countries of Africa and Asia is the cost of the pills and the needed laboratory equipments to monitor the effect of these medications. The majority of patients in these countries cannot afford taking these medicines for the life time so they only take a treatment for the diseases that attack their bodies because of the absent immune system.