HIV patients should use antiretroviral drugs as soon as possible after diagnosis

Release date: 2015-06-01

People living with HIV (HIV) should take antiretroviral drugs as soon as they become aware of their infection. They also announced that they will soon end one of the largest clinical trials of early AIDS treatment to date, as the benefits of the therapy are already evident. The study ended more than a year earlier than expected, as preliminary data have shown that people who receive treatment immediately after infection have a lower probability of dying or developing AIDS or serious illness during the trial than those who delay treatment. 53%.

Clinical trials have proven that early treatment of AIDS is effective

According to these officials, the study strongly proves that early treatment can save more lives. According to UNAIDS, there are approximately 35 million HIV carriers worldwide, of whom less than 14 million are receiving treatment. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are approximately 1.2 million HIV carriers in the United States, and only about 450,000 are receiving treatment.

“This is another reason for early detection and early treatment because you will benefit from it,” said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. said. “The sooner the better.” The agency is the sponsor of the trial.

Although the CDC recommended that HIV-infected patients receive treatment immediately after diagnosis, the agency said in November last year that only 37% of infected people in the United States had prescriptions for drugs. The agency attributed it to a variety of factors, such as HIV carriers who did not test, or who did not have health care and therefore did not see a doctor or could not afford medicine, and some patients' doctors were unfamiliar with the guidelines for treatment.

“This is a decisive moment for social justice,” said UNICEF Executive Director Michel Sidib. "People will be scared and say, hey, this will be a lot of money. But this ends the wrong debate about whether you should spend money on treatment."

For a long time, many AIDS researchers and advocates have emphasized that treatment should begin as early as possible based on their own observations and smaller studies. The trial, which ended on Wednesday, was the first large clinical trial to prove that infected people can live longer and healthier after receiving treatment.

“This is great,” said Dr. Susan P. Buchbinder, director of HIV prevention research at the San Francisco Public Health Bureau. Her agency began in 2010 to recommend that infected people receive treatment immediately after diagnosis, and new infections in the city have since decreased significantly. "For a long time, the evidence to support this practice has been accumulating, but it is now clear that it should be immediately available to people and tell them the benefits of doing so."

New York City has recommended HIV carriers as early as possible since 2011, but it has not been as successful as San Francisco, in part because San Francisco is a smaller city, and many AIDS experts are hospitalized together, so the treatment options are the same. .

“Many doctors in New York City are starting to provide medication for newly diagnosed patients,” said Demetre C. Daskalakis, Assistant Director of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control at the City Health Authority. The doctor said. “With this research, we have clearly answered this question: treating HIV – for both personal and public health. The data published by such an authoritative source should eliminate all doubts.”

Julio SG Montaner, former president of the International AIDS Society, published a groundbreaking paper in the Lancet magazine in 2006, saying that it is widely used. Antiretroviral treatment is the best way to curb AIDS. Montaner said the above study "confirmed the claims over the years."

Early treatment is not only beneficial to the patient, but also prevents them from spreading the virus. Several other studies have shown that people who take drugs on a regular basis have a 90% reduction in the likelihood of transmitting the virus to others, including spouses who often have protective behavior with them.

In the United States, many patients are reluctant to take medication without feeling uncomfortable because they have heard reports of serious side effects of the drug. Early antiretroviral prescriptions in the mid-1990s often caused rashes, accumulation of fat in the abdomen, and loss of consciousness in the fingers and feet. However, modern therapies – many of which rely mainly on Tenofovir, which was passed in 2001 but became popular a few years later – with much fewer side effects.

The experiment, called the Strategic Timing of Antiretroviral Treatment, recruited the first patients in 2009 but was not made public until 2011. At the end of the experiment, it has tracked 4,685 male and female HIV-infected people in 35 countries.

Source: cnbeta website

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