Question:

Please I have a Nigerian friend in ___ State who is now an AIDS victim. We are helping her in paying for medication such as the ARVs. We pay 5 thousand naira each month for them. I was wondering do you have a list of the different types of ARVs there are. As I would like to be knowledgable in what types there are so I am not 419 by those who are selling them.

One of the sellers in ___ State was telling me that there is a liquid form ... also there is one that the person takes for 6 months and they are so called cured. He is selling that one for 20 thousand niara a month.

PLEASE HELP ME

Answer:

Yes, dealing with HIV medicines is really complicated, even for the doctors. The most important thing to know is that a mistake can ruin someone's chances of long term survival, by creating resistance to the virus. This can be through the wrong dose, through missed doses (for example, if someone forgets, or there is no drug available for a few days, or whatever), or the wrong combination of drugs. It is far better for someone to not take anything at all until the situation is really settled, than to mess up their chances by not doing it perfectly from the start.

That said, one can prolong someone's life by giving even haphazard therapy, so if they have zero chance of ever getting proper care in the future, a little is better than nothing, even though it does destroy their chance of long-term survival.

Another thing to consider is whether the drugs are genuine even if they have the right names. If they're not obtained from a quite reliable source, then they may not be. That can be serious because taking a month of fake drug is like missing a month of the drugs, again causing resistance. So actually, it would be better for your friend to go even on a day long journey each months to get to a proper treatment center than to try to do it alone.

Has the person had a CD4 count done? Or do you know how severe the symptoms have been?

The basic program in Nigeria and many other places is to take one Combivir tablet and one nevirapine 200 mg tablet (or cap), both every 12 hours. As you probably know there is no cure so the 6-months cure claim is just quackery, but clever since so many people will be feeling fine by 6 months that they might think they are cured. Even a single drug taken alone can suppress the virus for a while, though again creating long term problems.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have more questions.

--Dr Mike Blyth

Keywords : HIV; AIDS; HIV/AIDS; antiretroviral; treatment; Africa; Combivir; nevirapine; quack;

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