HIV
The issue
Worldwide, HIV-1 continues to take a devastating toll. No country
is spared, but one continent,
Africa, is worse off than all others. In sub-Saharan Africa, over
22 million people are living with
HIV, millions die of it every year, and, tragically, millions become
newly infected, mostly
newborns infected during childbirth.
Parents are seeing their children die, children are being orphaned, and in some places entire communities are being decimated. Even though access to treatment has been scaled up, the current reach of HIV testing services remains poor. In low- and middle-income countries, only 10% of those who need testing have access to it, and current therapeutic testing is far from perfect. In addition, the difficulty of making an early diagnosis of HIV in infants remains an obstacle to further gains.
In fact, as a result of the HIV-1 pandemic, Africa is the only continent where life expectancy hovers around 50 years. However, with the advent of antiretroviral drugs, and the critical ongoing testing that accompanies them, HIV no longer has to be a death sentence. It is vital that testing accompany the drugs, especially viral load testing (the gold standard in industrialized nations), because it individualizes therapy and saves lives, money, and valuable resources, including the very drugs necessary to fight HIV.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that HIV-infected adolescents and adults should start antiretrovivral (ART) therapy when they have confirmed HIV infection and one of the following conditions:
| CD4 (cells/mm3) | WHO Treatment Recommendation |
| <200 | Treat irrespective of clinical stage |
| 200-350 | Consider treatment
and initiate before CD4 count drops below 200 cells/mm3 |
| >350 | Do not initiate treatment |
This differs significantly from the 2008 Recommendations of the International AIDS Society USA Panel, which recommends that treatment start below a CD4 count of 350 cells/mm3 and that it be considered at or above 350 cells/mm3.
| CD4 (cells/mm3) | International
AIDS Society, USA Panel Treatment Recommendation |
| <350 | Treatment recommended |
| ≥350 | Treatment should be individualized |
| Symptomatic HIV | Initiate treatment |
What we are doing about it
ViveBio is working with collaborators to utilize its solutions in the diagnosis and treatment of HIV.