HIV

When Will HIV Medications Stop Working?

This is a photo of a young man undergoing HIV treatment.

As with any anti-viral drug, the virus eventually overcomes the treatment.Viruses mutate to resist (and overcome) the medications meant to stop them — but this is no surprise, especially to anyone in the medical community. But what does this mean for HIV treatments and HIV medications?

As Kent Sepkowitz from The Daily Beast points out in his recent article covering the 23rd Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), we don’t have to freak out just yet. This is par for the course when it comes to these types of medical discussions.

Related: Cleaning Out Could Prevent HIV

While, yes, some of the recent results from drug-resistant viral strains are certainly troubling, they’re not unheard of. As Sepkowitz points out, we’ve seen similar trends with other viruses, like tuberculosis.

But don’t let the hype get you — we can’t afford to mishandle these critical years while new drugs and procedures are being tested and debated. No, the sky isn’t falling. At least not yet. You can learn more about HIV and AIDS in theAsapSCIENCE video below.

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