What is antiretroviral drug resistance?

When entering the virus in your body begins to multiply or create new viruses within it, HIV has the ability to mutate; Ie each number of copies, the virus changes shape, those “different” viruses having been in contact with the drug are no longer affected by it.

The role of antiretroviral therapy is to prevent the virus from multiplying, for that reason resistance and mutation occurs when the person has not taken the medication at the indicated time, this causes the time lapses that the body runs out of medicine for Forget the pill, are an opportunity for the virus to reproduce and become stronger than the medicine.

The more frequent these forgetfulness, the more opportunities the virus has. In the future the drug may stop working completely, the person may acquire some opportunistic infection, become ill and also need a change of medication schedule.

The second reason for resistance is when the virus has been acquired by a person who already took medication and was not adherent, or when the couple also lives with the virus and they do not protect themselves with the condom. That’s why condom use is important both in discordant couples (when only one lives with HIV) and in couples in which both are positive.

The so-called Genotype test identifies which other drugs, if any, will not be effective in combating HIV. The results of this test can help your doctor determine which anti-HIV drugs to include in the new treatment regimen.

Remember that the more drug changes, the more we exhaust the options to stay healthy. Do not let this happen as it all depends on you.

Taking HIV medications every day and exactly as prescribed will reduce the risk of drug resistance.

Source investigated by: Ale Calderón, El Salvador

Link: http://1.usa.gov/1sEYlTe