My mother has taken ARVs in vain

Mar 01, 2009

ARVs are given in combinations of at least three different drugs if they are to be effective and not a single one like what your mother is taking. This is known as Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy.

Face HIV with Dr. Watiti

Dear Doctor,
My mother has been taking ARVs for over three years but she has not improved. She has been taking a drug called Abacavir and it costs us two hundred thousand shillings to purchase it every month. We are frustrated considering the cost of the medicine and its failure to help. What should we do?
Sarah

Dear Sarah,
ARVs are given in combinations of at least three different drugs if they are to be effective and not a single one like what your mother is taking. This is known as Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy.

You should not be deceived that an expensive drug such as Abacavir can be used alone. Abacavir is in a group of antiretroviral drugs called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

We normally pick two drugs from this group and combine them with one drug from another group of ARVs known as non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors to form a first line regimen.

Register your mother with a credible HIV/AIDS treatment centre or hospital so that she is assessed and put on a correct regimen of ARVs.

She should be monitored regularly by doing laboratory tests such as CD4 counts to see that she is improving. Do not buy drugs from unscrupulous dealers who may only be after money.

Some of these drugs may even be fake and dangerous.

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