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HIV drugs 'add 13 years of life'


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"Life expectancy for people with HIV has increased by an average of 13 years since the late 1990s thanks to better HIV treatment, a study says.

Researchers said it meant HIV was now effectively a chronic condition like diabetes, rather than a fatal disease, the Lancet reported.

But the researchers warned those diagnosed later in the course of the infection had a much shorter life expectancy.

Marc Thompson, deputy head of health promotion at the Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "HIV medication has become much more effective since the early days.

"There has been great progress, but research needs to continue, especially for those who have developed resistance to some drugs and are running out of options."

But he added the study also highlighted the need for early diagnosis, pointing out an estimated a third of people with HIV do not know they have it. "
DeliaTheArtist

6 responses // HIV drugs 'add 13 years of life'

  • This is amazing! We're getting closer towards a cure. I guess once it's found, the next topic of debate would be the cost of this drug.
    Noved
  • just going to add this.

    Its very impressive that the drugs work so well, the line HIV is more like a chronic illness now" really stands out.

    The "scientific community" gets a lot of flack,especially when you hear of scientists doing seemingly pointless things, people say stuff like "why haven't the cured cancer yet" or other idiots statements.
    Scientists are not this singular bunch that all share a house together but a wide varied group of people across the world in some very different arenas.

    Next time someone tells me about all the things science hasn't done or science cant explain I'll point them to this.

    Science giving visible results, making a real contribution to people's lives.
    Owwmykneecap
    1 response to this
  • Great! Now let's bring it to Africa and save some people.
    drewsuf721
  • This is true for the most part. However, 13 years is not accurate. Actually there is not a given life span for a person with the disease. With the medications that are out there, doctors treating patients with HIV will tell their patients that there is not an expected life span. They say that a person can live a normal healthy life as long as they take care of themselves. This means eating right, taking the medicine, taking vitamins, and doing what the doctor tells them to do. There is no cure, but there are drugs that can kill the virus that is in the bloodstream. The HIV virus is a very intelligent virus and can work kind of like an army. It reproduces thousands of copies of the virus within one hour. Some of the copies are realeased into the bloodstream and some are stored in the muscles and tissues. The medication will actually kill what is realeased in the bloodstream. It is so far unable to kill what is released in the muscles and tissues. However, as long as there is no amount of the virus in the bloodstream it does not have the ability to do harm to the immune system and can actually give the body the opportunity to build the immune system back up with the help of medication. You don't hear about all of this because they don't want anyone to know how far advanced they really are in the research. They still want people to think like they did 10 years ago when you knew that if you had the disease it would only be a matter of time before you die. This is now not the case.
    mchav18
  • can you get HIV if you touch someone elses g string!!!!
    phukna

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