Anti-retroviral drugs not Aids cure, take care
The East African Standard Online Edition
Monday, September 22, 2003
Anti-retroviral drugs not Aids cure, take care
(Wayback Machine web.archive.org)
With anti-retroviral therapies and fewer deaths associated with these HIV/Aids treatments, many people could be tempted to discontinue safe sex practices.
There is no doubt this situation is going to have an enormous effect on our lives.
People think because we have anti-retroviral therapies there is no need to practice safe sex. There is no guarantee these medications will work on everyone.
Multiple sex partners means multiple infections can occur with the likelihood of infection with more than one HIV strain. This places an individual in greater danger of illness and or death as well as any person they infect. Some strains of HIV have been shown to cause illness and death rapidly regardless of immune status.
The World Health Organisation has estimated 170 million people world-wide are infected with hepatitis C.
Being infected with HIV may also include being infected with Hepatitis C along with other sexually-transmitted diseases such as; syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, human papilloma virus (HPV), herpes simplex virus (HSV), and hepatitis A, B, and/or C.
There is the perception that if you are infected, HIV is manageable.
Managing HIV/Aids can become a full time job. It involves management of your health through doctors‚ appointments, hospital visits for blood work and appointments at hospital pharmacies to pick up your necessary HIV/Aids medications.
You must manage the side effects of the drugs and drug resistance. There are the demands of managing to overcome each opportunistic infection. All of these are essential to manage to stay alive.
Bradford McIntyre,
via e-mail.
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