When people first started getting sick from HIV there were no drugs that could stop the virus from reproducing, or even slow it down. There is still no cure for AIDS, but at least now there are drugs, called antivirals, to treat HIV infection. These drugs work by blocking HIV from reproducing, and people with AIDS are living longer because of them.
In Canada (and in many other industrialized countries) these drugs are usually free. The bad news is the drugs can have unpleasant side-effects and may eventually stop working. Even with the drugs, living with HIV is not easy.
The drugs used to treat HIV all work by blocking proteins that HIV needs to reproduce, but the cell does not need. There are two kinds of anti-HIV drugs:
Reverse transcriptase inhibitors block reverse transcriptase, a protein HIV needs to reproduce.
Similarly, protease inhibitors block protease, another protein HIV needs to reproduce. Because your cells don’t need reverse transcriptase or protease, there is no direct harm in blocking them. Unfortunately, anti-HIV drugs, like all drugs, have side-effects that can affect cells.
There are several different RTIs and PIs available. Experience shows these drugs work best when taken together, so people usually take three or more of them at once. This is called combination therapy, or HAART (Highly Active AntiRetroviral Therapy). Or sometimes just, “the cocktail.”
Drugs that block HIV in other ways are also being developed. Some prevent the virus from attaching to CD4 cells in the first place. Others prevent attached HIV from passing through the surface of the cell and getting inside. These drugs are called entry or fusion inhibitors and were first sold in 2003.