The most common treatment for HIV is the Highly Active Anti Retroviral Therapy (HAART) drug regime. It is a combination of several drugs with varied functions designed to maximise the effectiveness of the treatment and to delay the progress of the virus, and increasing the life expectancy. Some of the drugs are:
1. Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs). NNRTIs disable a protein needed by HIV to make copies of itself. Examples include efavirenz (Sustiva), etravirine (Intelence) and nevirapine (Viramune).
2. Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs). NRTIs are faulty versions of building blocks that HIV needs to make copies of itself. Examples include Abacavir (Ziagen), and the combination drugs emtricitabine and tenofovir (Truvada), and lamivudine and zidovudine (Combivir).
3. Protease inhibitors (PIs). PIs disable protease, another protein that HIV needs to make copies of itself. Examples include atazanavir (Reyataz), darunavir (Prezista), fosamprenavir (Lexiva) and ritonavir (Norvir).
4. Entry or fusion inhibitors. These drugs block HIV's entry into CD4 cells. Examples include enfuvirtide (Fuzeon) and maraviroc (Selzentry).
5. Integrase inhibitors. Raltegravir (Isentress) works by disabling integrase, a protein that HIV uses to insert its genetic material into CD4 cells.
HIV can easily develop resistance to an individual antiretroviral therapy, but it is harder for the virus to become drug resistant when multiple antiretroviral therapies with varied mechanisms of action are combined into a single HIV treatment that is used most as the most common treatment for HIV.
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