According to Mayo Clinic, there is no cure for the HIV infection. The only treatment is to try to control it by combining various drugs. If done properly, these treatments should reduce the HIV levels in the blood to where they are undetectable. However, it is still possible to transmit the virus.
For the most effective treatment, and to avoid making strains of the virus immune to specific drugs, 3 or more drugs should be combines from two or more different groups. These will probably have to be taken every day for the rest of the patient's life. The most common combination of drugs is available for $64 in the United States per year for one person.
- Non-Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (NNRTIs) - They interfere with an enzyme necessary for replication of the virus.
- efavirenz (Sustiva)
- etravirine (Intelence)
- nevirapine (Viramune)
- Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) -They are faulty versions of building blocks that the virus needs to replicate.
- Abacavir (Ziagen)
- emtricitabine and tenofovir (Truvada)
- lamivudine and zidovudine (Combivir)
- Protease inhibitors (PIs) - They disable protease, an enzyme that is essential to replication.
- atazanavir (Reyataz)
- darunavir (Prezista)
- fosamprenavir (Lexiva)
- ritonavir (Norvir)
- Entry or fusion inhibitors - These do not allow the virus to enter the helper T cells.
- enfuvirtide (Fuzeon)
- maraviroc (Selzentry)
- Integrase inhibitors - It disables integrase, a protein that the virus uses to insert its genetic material into CD4 cells.
- Raltegravir (Isentress)
