Medications for HIV

HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is a virus that attacks the body's immune system, specifically CD4 T cells that are critical for fighting off infections and certain cancers. HIV is transmitted through contact with specific body fluids — blood, semen, vaginal fluids, rectal fluids, and breast milk — from a person who has HIV and is not on effective treatment. Without treatment, HIV progresses through stages: acute HIV infection (a flu-like illness shortly after exposure), clinical latency (an asymptomatic phase that can last years), and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), when the immune system is severely weakened. HIV affects approximately 1.2 million people in the United States and about 38 million globally. Common early symptoms of acute HIV infection include fever, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat, rash, and muscle aches.

Without treatment, HIV progressively destroys the immune system, leading to AIDS and life-threatening opportunistic infections — such as certain pneumonias, fungal infections, and cancers — typically within about 10 years of infection. With modern treatment, however, people with HIV can live long, healthy lives with a near-normal life expectancy. Treatment is antiretroviral therapy (ART), which uses combinations of drugs from multiple classes to suppress HIV to undetectable levels in the blood, preventing disease progression and transmission. The major ART drug classes include nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs), protease inhibitors (PIs), and entry/attachment inhibitors. The medications listed below are among the most commonly prescribed antiretroviral drugs for managing HIV.