Good News For HIV Positive People

A new British study has revealed that HIVdefine mortality rates have slashed in the developed countries where people with HIV got their hands on anti-retroviral drugs, which were introduced in 1996.

The study, published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that HIVdefine infected people were no more likely to die in the initial five years following infection than the uninfected people in the general population.

Lead author of the study, Kholoud Porter, an epidemiologist at Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit in London said that the study excluded the people infected through injected drug use; also their death risk was much higher in the five years after infection.

Kholoud Porter said, “We weren't surprised about the dramatic decline [in mortality] over time."

"But this puts a number on it,” Porter added.

After the introduction of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) in developed nations in mid 90’s, many studied have claimed that there is great drop in death rates of individuals with HIV but the new study is the first to track closely the date of infection in these patients.

Kholoud Porter and Krishnan Bhaskaran from Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit in London conducted the study on 16,534 people with HIV in Europe, Canada and Australia between 1981 and 2006. The researchers did the follow up of the subjects for more than 6 years per person and measured the progress of subjects and medication taken by them.

By December 2006, 2,571 subjects had died, more than ten times the likely 235 deaths that would have been expected in a similar general population without HIV.

Porter said that the risk perks up again after the period of 5 years. The reasons being either people tend to be irregular in taking their medications or maybe because they are not able to tolerate the anti-retrieval drugs.

People in between the ages of 15 to 24 years who got the disease while they were in this age group had a five percent higher risk of dying at 10 years after infection and at 15 years had 7% greater risk than uninfected people in the general population.

The author said that for the individuals above 45s, the increased risk was 5% at 10 years and 12% at 15 years.

Till now no cure is found for HIV. The people infected with HIV have to take the anti-retrieval drugs throughout their life as the drugs helps in keeping people healthy for many years even if they never eradicate the virus.

Gilead Sciences Inc, Roche, Abbott Laboratories, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck Inc and Bristol-Myers Squibb are some of the major manufacturers of AIDS drugs.

About HIV:

HIV is the 'Human Immunodeficiency Virus'. A person infected with HIV can pass it on to another person through unprotected sexual intercourse, coming in contact with the bodily fluids of infected person, having contact with an infected person's blood, injecting drugs.

The HIV virus can be transmitted from an infected woman to her baby during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding. A latest study conducted in India, Ethiopia and Uganda has found that an antiretroviral drug, nevirapine which is already in use in many developing countries to prevent newborns from getting HIV from their infected mothers during childbirth, significantly reduces the risk of HIV transmission during breastfeeding.

One cannot get infected with HIV through sharing crockery, getting bite from insect or animal, touching, hugging or shaking hands, using toilet seats or eating meals which are cooked by someone with HIV.

Approximately 33 million people around the world are infected by the AIDS virus, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, where 68 percent adults and around 90% children are infected with HIV.