Do the drugs really work?

In every country that uses ARVs, there has been a dramatic drop in AIDS-related deaths and illnesses.

Treatment works for women, men and children. It works no matter how you were infected with HIV. Whether this was sexually, through IV drug use, or by blood or blood products.

Taking HIV drugs, exactly as prescribed, will reduce the virus in your body to tiny amounts – but it does not get rid of the virus.

This then lets your immune system recover and get stronger by itself.

How to check treatment is working

Regular monitoring, using blood tests, will check that the drugs continue to work.

Viral load tests measure the amount of HIV in your blood.
Results are given as copies/mL.
CD4 tests measure how strong your immune system is.
Results are given as cells/mm³.

Even if you start with a very low CD4 count, you could regain enough of your own immune system for your body to recover from many HIV-related illnesses.

If you use HIV treatment at the right time, and in the right way, you will stay well much longer.

How do the drugs work?

HIV drugs work by stoping the virus from making copies of itself.

This brings viral load down to tiny levels and your immune system (CD4 count) then has a chance to become stronger again.

How long will the drugs work?

If your viral load stays undetectable (below 50 copies/mL) you can use the same combination for many years.

Combination therapy using at least 3 drugs has now been used for over 10 years. Many of the individual drugs have been studied for even longer.

How long a combination will work depends on not developing resistance. This in turn depends on getting, and keeping, your viral load to undetectable levels.

Goal of treatment

In UK guidelines, getting your viral load below 50 is a main goal of treatment.

This is the web edition of the i-Base guide Introduction to combination therapy. This guide is available in UK clinics. You can order free printed copies or download a PDF version (516 Kb). Translations. Authors and credits. Glossary. Full section index.

Decisions relating to your treatment should always be taken in consultation with your doctor. Information in this guide is intended to support those discussions.