Sexually Transmitted Infections: Updates From the 2021 CDC Guidelines
Key HIV Symptoms You Need To Know - Rolling Out
Understanding the symptoms of HIV is paramount, as early detection can dramatically impact treatment outcomes and quality of life
In the realm of public health, few viruses have commanded as much attention and concern as HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus. Since its discovery in the 1980s, HIV has posed significant challenges to global health, affecting millions of lives worldwide. Understanding the symptoms of HIV is paramount, as early detection can dramatically impact treatment outcomes and quality of life.
In this article, we embark on a journey to unravel the key symptoms of HIV, empowering readers with essential knowledge to recognize potential signs of infection. By shedding light on these symptoms, we aim to equip individuals with the tools they need to protect their health and well-being.
Whether you're seeking clarity for yourself or seeking information for a loved one, delving into the nuances of HIV symptoms can pave the way for informed decision-making and proactive healthcare practices.
Join us as we delve into the intricacies of HIV symptoms, demystifying this complex virus and arming you with the insights necessary to navigate HIV prevention, detection, and treatment with confidence and clarity.
Understanding HIVHuman immunodeficiency virus is a virus that attacks the body's immune system, specifically targeting CD4 cells, also known as T cells, which help the immune system fight off infections. Without treatment, HIV can progress to AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), a condition where the immune system is severely compromised, making individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and other complications.
Key Symptoms of HIVEarly detection of HIV is crucial for initiating treatment and preventing disease progression. If you experience any of the symptoms mentioned above and suspect you may have been exposed to human immunodeficiency virus, it's essential to seek medical advice promptly. Human immunodeficiency virus testing is readily available and confidential, allowing individuals to know their status and access appropriate care and support.
Understanding the key symptoms of HIV is vital for early detection and timely intervention. By recognizing these symptoms and seeking medical attention promptly, individuals can access the necessary treatment and support to manage the virus effectively. Additionally, practicing safe sex and taking preventive measures, such as using condoms and avoiding needle sharing, can reduce the risk of human immunodeficiency virus transmission. Stay informed, stay proactive, and prioritize your health and well-being.
This story was created using AI technology.
Man Appears Free Of HIV After Stem Cell Transplant
A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The patient underwent a stem cell transplant and since, has not tested positive for HIV in his blood.
"The patient is fine," said Dr. Gero Hutter of Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany. "Today, two years after his transplantation, he is still without any signs of HIV disease and without antiretroviral medication."
The case was first reported in November, and the new report is the first official publication of the case in a /topics/The_New_England_Journal_of_Medicine/" class="cnnInlineTopic">medical journal. Hutter and a team of medical professionals performed the stem cell transplant on the patient, an American living in Germany, to treat the man's /topics/Leukemia/" class="cnnInlineTopic">leukemia, not the HIV itself.
However, the team deliberately chose a compatible donor who has a naturally occurring gene mutation that confers resistance to HIV. The mutation cripples a receptor known as CCR5, which is normally found on the surface of T cells, the type of immune system cells attacked by HIV.
The mutation is known as CCR5 delta32 and is found in 1 percent to 3 percent of white populations of European descent.
HIV uses the CCR5 as a co-receptor (in addition to CD4 receptors) to latch on to and ultimately destroy immune system cells. Since the virus can't gain a foothold on cells that lack CCR5, people who have the mutation have natural protection. (There are other, less common HIV strains that use different co-receptors.)
People who inherit one copy of CCR5 delta32 take longer to get sick or develop AIDS if infected with HIV. People with two copies (one from each parent) may not become infected at all. The stem cell donor had two copies.
While promising, the treatment is unlikely to help the vast majority of people infected with HIV, said Dr. Jay Levy, a professor at the University of California San Francisco, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. A stem cell transplant is too extreme and too dangerous to be used as a routine treatment, he said.
"About a third of the people die [during such transplants], so it's just too much of a risk," Levy said. To perform a /topics/Stem_Cell_Research/" class="cnnInlineTopic">stem cell transplant, doctors intentionally destroy a patient's immune system, leaving the patient vulnerable to infection, and then reintroduce a donor's stem cells (which are from either bone marrow or blood) in an effort to establish a new, healthy immune system.
Levy also said it's unlikely that the transplant truly cured the patient in this study. HIV can infect many other types of cells and may be hiding out in the patient's body to resurface at a later time, he said.
"This type of virus can infect macrophages (another type of white blood cell that expresses CCR5) and other cells, like the brain cells, and it could live a lifetime. But if it can't spread, you never see it-- but it's there and it could do some damage," he said. "It's not the kind of approach that you could say, 'I've cured you.' I've eliminated the virus from your body." Health.Com: 10 questions to ask a new partner before having sex
Before undergoing the transplant, the patient was also found to be infected with low levels of a type of HIV known as X4, which does not use the CCR5 receptor to infect cells. So it would seem that this virus would still be able to grow and damage immune cells in his body. However, following the transplant, signs of leukemia and HIV were absent.
"There is no really conclusive explanation why we didn't observe any rebound of HIV," Hutter said. "This finding is very surprising."
Hutter noted that one year ago, the patient had a relapse of leukemia and a second transplant from the same donor. The patient experienced complications from the procedure, including temporary liver problems and kidney failure, but they were not unusual and may occur in HIV-negative patients, he said.
Researchers including Hutter agree that the technique should not be used to treat HIV alone. "Some people may say, 'I want to do it,'" said Levy. A more logical -- and potentially safer -- approach would be to develop some type of CCR5-disabling gene therapy or treatment that could be directly injected into the body, said Levy.
Less invasive options to alter CCR5 could be on the horizon within the next five years, said Levy. "It's definitely the wave of the future," he said. "As we continue to follow this one patient, we will learn a lot."
One drug that's currently on the market that blocks CCR5 is called maraviroc (Selzentry). It was first approved in 2007 and is used in combination with other antiretroviral drugs. Health.Com: Who's most at risk for STDs?
In 2007, an estimated 2 million people died from AIDS, and 2.7 million people contracted HIV. More than 15 million women are infected worldwide. /topics/HIV_and_AIDS/" class="cnnInlineTopic">HIV/AIDS can be transmitted through sexual intercourse, sharing needles, pregnancy, breast-feeding, and/or blood transfusions with an infected person. Health.Com:What should I do if the condom breaks?
"For HIV patients, this report is an important flicker of hope that antiretroviral therapy like HAART [highly active antiretroviral therapy] is not the endpoint of medical research," Hutter said.
All About /topics/Leukemia">Leukemia • /topics/HIV_and_AIDS">HIV and AIDS • /topics/The_New_England_Journal_of_Medicine">The New England Journal of Medicine • /topics/Stem_Cell_Research">Stem Cell Research
How Yeztugo Works To Prevent HIV - WebMD
Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is used to prevent you from getting HIV when you do not have it but are at high risk of getting it. Activities that put you at high risk for getting HIV include things like having unprotected sex or injection drug use. There are several different PrEP options available, including tablets and injections. Yeztugo (lenacapavir) uses both. It is a PrEP option to reduce your risk of getting HIV through sex as long as you weigh at least 77 pounds (35 kilograms). Yeztugo is only approved for use by itself to prevent HIV infections, not to treat it. But in order to use it, you will need to have a negative HIV test before you start and before each set of injections.
HIV is a virus that has a coating around it, which is called a capsid. In order for HIV to make copies of itself and spread within your body, it needs to get inside some of your cells. Then the capsid dissolves and the virus uses things within your cells to make new copies of itself. Each copy of the HIV virus has to have its own capsid. Yeztugo is a type of medicine called a capsid inhibitor. It does three things. First, it causes problems with capsid dissolving. If the capsid does not dissolve well, the virus has trouble making copies of itself. Next it causes problems when the HIV virus copies are being made, specifically the parts to make the new capsid. This means there are fewer pieces to make the new capsids for the copies of the virus. Finally, it changes how quickly the new capsids are put together so they are often put together incorrectly. If they are not put together correctly, they are less likely to work.
It is very important for you to take Yeztugo at the dose and on the schedule your health care provider recommends. Taking the wrong dose, skipping doses, or not getting doses on time can lower your protection against an HIV infection.
When you first start Yeztugo, as long as you are not taking any medicines that interact with Yeztugo, you will take tablets and get injections. Your health care provider will give you two injections on the same day. You will take two tablets the day you get your injections and two tablets the next day. From that point forward, as long as you stay on schedule, you will get two injections from your health care provider six months (24 to 26 weeks) from your last set of injections. As long as you keep getting your injections every 24 to 26 weeks, you should not need to take any more Yeztugo tablets.
It is also very important for you to plan ahead and be proactive about your doses. This will increase the chances that Yeztugo will work for you. Contact your health care provider if you need to delay your Yeztugo injections longer than 26 weeks from your last set of injections. It may be possible for you to take Yeztugo tablets until you are able to get in for your next injection.
If it has been longer than 28 weeks since your last injection and you did not take additional tablets after it had been 26 weeks since your last set of Yeztugo injections, you may need to restart Yeztugo with two days of tablets and two injections.
In order to maximize the benefits of Yeztugo and minimize your risk of an HIV infection, you should also use safe sex practices. Limit your number of sexual partners. Having sex with multiple partners can increase your odds of getting an HIV infection. Avoid using drugs or alcohol before or during sex. Drugs and alcohol can cloud your judgment and reduce the chance that you will use safe sex practices. Use latex or polyurethane condoms consistently and correctly. Condoms not only reduce your risk of HIV, but they also reduce your risk of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea. Yeztugo does not protect you against any of these STIs. It only protects against HIV. Get tested for these infections. Having an STI can increase your risk for giving or getting HIV. Know your sexual partner's HIV status. Does your partner have HIV? If they have HIV, do they regularly take all of their HIV medicines? Is their viral load undetectable? Someone with HIV with an undetectable viral load cannot transmit HIV, a concept known as U=U (undetectable = untransmittable). The only way to have an undetectable viral load is to take your HIV medicines as prescribed.
In addition to getting tested for HIV before every dose of Yeztugo, you should also get tested if you think you may have HIV or have recently been exposed to it. Early symptoms of HIV can be just like having the flu. Tell your health care provider and follow their recommendations for testing if you have any flu-like symptoms including the following.
Two clinical studies were done to see if Yeztugo was safe and effective for preventing HIV infections.
Study one included all females between the ages of 16 and 26 years old who were primarily from Africa and Uganda. People in the study used one of the following PrEP options:
Everyone in the study also took tablets or injections with no medicine in them to match the other groups so no one knew which medicine they were getting.
Study two included males, transgender women, transgender men, gender nonbinary people, and other genders between the ages of 17 and 74 years old from several countries including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, and the United States. People in that study either took Yeztugo tablets and injections or emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (F/TDF). Tablets and injections without medicine in them were also used in this study to keep everyone from knowing which medicine they were getting. Most of the people in the studies had not ever used any type of PrEP before. It was also common for people in the studies to have sexually transmitted infections. For example, between 11% and 12% of people in study two tested positive for chlamydia at enrollment. This percentage was even higher in study one, with between 24% and 26% testing positive for chlamydia.
Fewer HIV Infections. Both of these studies looked at the number of people with HIV infections at 52 weeks. People who used Yeztugo were much less likely to get infected with HIV during the study compared to emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (F/TDF). You can review the number of people who became infected with HIV during these studies in the table below.
HIV Infections
Study 1
Study 2
Medicine
(number of people)
Yeztugo
(2,138)
F/TAF group
(2,137)*
F/TDF group
(1,070)
Yeztugo
(2,138)
F/TDF group
(1,088)
HIV infections
0
39
16
2
9
HIV infections per 100 person-years
0
2.02
1.69
0.1
0.93
*Note that emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide (F/TAF) had not been studied in females before, so it was not known if it would work to prevent HIV.
Better Adherence. These studies also looked at adherence. Taking medicine as prescribed and on time is known as adherence. It is very important to take PrEP as prescribed and on time for it to prevent an HIV infection. People who used Yeztugo were much more likely to get their doses as prescribed and on time. In both studies, at least 91% of the injections were given on time at 26 weeks. At least 92% of the injections were given on time at 52 weeks. Adherence in the other groups was not as high.
Adherence to the tablets was divided into three levels: high, medium, and low. High adherence was defined as taking at least four of the seven weekly doses. Medium adherence was defined as taking two or three of the seven weekly doses. Low adherence was defined as taking less than two doses of the weekly seven. You can review the adherence rates in the table below.
Estimated Adherence
Study 1
Study 2
F/TAF group
F/TDF group
F/TDF group
26 weeks
High
22%
4%
67%
Medium
8%
7%
7%
Low
70%
89%
26%
52 weeks
High
11%
0%
62%
Medium
5%
7%
11%
Low
84%
93%
27%
In summary, people in these studies were more likely to take their medicine as prescribed and less likely to get an HIV infection using Yeztugo as PrEP than if they take no medicine or took emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (F/TDF). Your results may differ from what was seen in these studies.
Yeztugo stays in your body for a long time. This is why after taking tablets for two days and getting your first injections, you only have to get injections every six months. This also means Yeztugo can interact with other medicines for a long time, even up to nine months after your last dose.
Certain medicines can lower your blood levels of Yeztugo. If you take any of these medicines, you may need to get extra doses of Yeztugo tablets, injections, or both for it to work to prevent an HIV infection. A few examples of some of the medicines that interact with Yeztugo include the following.
Before you start Yeztugo, tell your health care provider about all of your medicines. While you are using Yeztugo, tell your health care provider if you are supposed to start or stop taking any other medicines. By doing these things, your health care provider can make sure that you get the right dose of Yeztugo.
There is a coupon available from the drugmaker that may allow you to pay $0 for your prescription. Whether you are eligible depends on whether you have prescription insurance and what type of insurance you have. You can find out more at www.Yeztugo.Com/coverage-cost-support.
Comments
Post a Comment