HIV/AIDS, those seven letters open people eyes. When HIV first revealed itself everyone was on pins and needles because of the lack of information. HIV has developed many stereotypes. Many of the social stereotypes attached to people living with HIV/AIDS are incorrect. Since the late 2000s the improve antiviral drug therapy has led to a better or “normal” life for infected individuals. Antivirals therapies are not the easiest to come by and insurance companies are complicated when it comes to infected patients with HIV/AIDS.
Along with the cost there are different types of drug therapies and some are more effective than others. According to Michael Oldstone’s Viruses, Plagues and History today there are huge advancements in drug therapy has reduced the HIV/AIDS death rates by two-thirds. In the early 1990s in United States the death rate was less great (251). But the early twenty-first century antiviral drug therapies have since improved. The earlier the treatment begins the better the prognoses, some infected patients delay treatment until they see symptoms.
In doing so leads to a poorer outcome (Oldstone 252). A longer life expectancy correlates with the shortest time interval between HIV infection, diagnosis, and start of antiviral medical therapy (Oldstone 252). There are improvements in testing for HIV infected persons. There are two tests, CD4 count and HIV viral load. Both help healthcare provides know the strength of your immune system. CD4 cells help your immune system function but the HIV virus comes in and kills those CD4 cells. However the CD4 count test tells how many CD4 cells you have and the higher the count the better.
The second test health care providers administer is the HIV viral load test. This test determines how much of the HIV virus is present in your blood and how fast is it growing. The higher the viral load is equivalent to how fast the virus is infecting and how fast the virus is killing your CD4 cells. Once your healthcare provider receives these result they can tell how urgent to start antiretroviral drug therapy. With these advancement in testing HIV can be diagnosed much faster (HIV Persistence and the Prospect of Long-Term Drug-Free Remissions for HIV-Infected Individuals).
There has since been many different antiretroviral drugs and they work by attacking the HIV virus directly and the drugs cripple the ability of the virus to make copies of it. For most antiviral drugs the plan of attack would be to clear the HIV from the body and block all viral replication. Most of the therapeutic methods involve combination therapy with 3 or more antiviral drugs. This method decreases the viral burden. The main 2 drugs for antiretroviral (ARV) therapy are the Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (NRTIs) and Chemokine Coreceptor Antagonists (CCR5).
The NRTIs drugs blocks the enzyme reverse transcriptase from converting the HIV virus genetic material from RNA to DNA which helps the virus mature (Can HIV be Cured? ) Two examples of drug combinations are indinavir, zidovudine, and lamivudine or nevirapine, zidovudine, and didanosine (Public Health Implications of Antiretroviral Therapy and HIV Drug Resistance). These NRTIs can be combined into one tablet. The other drug therapies for ARV are CCR5, which blocks the infection by interfering with the ability of the virus to bind to a molecular receptor known as Chemokine Coreceptor. CCR5 is just one tablet.
Thus, the combination antiviral regimens used must have blocked viral replication to the extent that the mutations that encode drug resistance could not occur. Medications for HIV are taken daily come with a hefty price tag. According to Michael Oldstone’s Viruses, Plague and History the enhanced life expectancy of those infected and on medication leads to a high medical cost per individual. The cost of medical cost of his/her predicted lifespan approximately twenty-five years after their HIV diagnoses are about $600,000 to $650,000. This amount covers drugs and medical visits (255).
The cost of HIV/AIDS patients increases substantially as HIV diseases progress. HIV care and treatment involves a commitment to ongoing visits with your health care provider, tests to monitor your health status, and medications. These things are important because with the proper care and treatment, you can reduce your viral load, protect your health, enjoy a long and healthy life, and reduce the potential of transmitting the virus to others (The Cost Effectiveness of Combination Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV Disease). But you might have concerns about how to pay for this.
There are resources that can help you pay for the care you need. The cost of treatment started at this late stage averages $4,700 per month. That’s because hospital costs rise to almost half the lifetime expenses. In the last 10 years, the U. S. has tripled its spending on HIV-related medical care. With three-drug therapy, as compared with no therapy, the life expectancy was 3. 51 years (2. 91 quality-adjusted years), the lifetime cost was $77,300, and the incremental cost per quality-adjusted year of life was $23,000 (The Cost Effectiveness of Combination Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV Disease).
“The higher CD4 Cell Counts started the three-drug therapy when the patient presented with a CD4 cell count that was 500 per cubic millimeter (and an HIV RNA level that exceeded 30,000 copies per milliliter) increased total lifetime costs from $64,210 to $90,980 and increased quality-adjusted life expectancy from 5. 10 to 6. 94 years, with an incremental cost of $15,000 per quality-adjusted year of life gained, as compared with no therapy. This approach was more effective and a more efficient use of resources than starting therapy when the CD4 cell count was 350 per cubic millimeter.
4,5 Waiting until the CD4 cell count was 200 per cubic millimeter resulted in higher total costs and a lower quality-adjusted life expectancy. With the improved efficacy reported in more recent trials,18 the cost-effectiveness ratio for therapy initiated when the CD4 cell count was 500 per cubic millimeter was decreased to $11,000 per quality-adjusted year of life gained (The Cost Effectiveness of Combination Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV Disease). Michael Oldstone says the current patients with HIV are living longer with fewer disease symptoms.
The reason behind that was the development of anti-HIV medications now formulated to only one pill a day is needed (Oldstone 253). People with HIV may enjoy life spans close to normal if they maintain low viral loads and CD4 counts above 350. Furthermore, those who survive past 60 may have life expectancies that surpass normal; thanks to the better overall health care monitoring they experience compared with the general population. The ARVs contribute to maintaining a higher CD4 count which leads to a promise significance of extra years of life.
For example five years into ARV treatment, 35-year-old male patients with counts between 350 and 500 could expect to live to 77—and to 81 if their CD4 counts were higher than 500. On the flip side, those who fail to develop a suppressed viral load would lose 11 years of life expectancy. And people whose CD4 counts remain below 200 after five years on ARVs could expect to live only to 55 on average. HIV/AIDS will always be a world epidemic. Although we are making new advances in battling this virus. The best way to stay safe is to stay informed.
There is no cure for this virus, so there is no room for ignorance on this matter. People are living longer lives with the virus than they ever have before. There are government assistant or different programs to pay for infected patients therapy and medical visits. HIV/AIDS is not the death sentence that it was 30 years ago.
Work Cited Oldstone, Michael B. A. Viruses, Plagues, and History: Past, Present, and Future. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. Stevenson, Mario. “Can HIV Be Cured?. ” Scientific American 299. 5 (2008): 78-83. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. Trono, Didier.
“HIV Persistence and the Prospect of Long-Term Drug-Free Remissions for HIV-Infected Individuals. ” Science 329 (2010): 174-180. JSTOR. Web. 26 Oct. 2013 Wainberg, Mark A. , Friedland, Gerald. “Public Health Implications of Antiretroviral Therapy and HIV Drug Resistance. ” JAMA: The Journal of American Medical Association 279 Academic Search Premier. Web. 08 Oct. 2013 Freedberg , Kenneth A. , Losina, Elena . , Weinstein, Milton C. , Paltiel , A. David. “The Cost Effectiveness of Combination Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV Disease” 344 (2001): 824-831. Health Source: Nursing. Web. 08 Nov. 2013.