how long do people live when they have both hiv and hep c

My feeling is that the most important issue is to stay healthy with the medications that are available and to do your best to prevent complications. So...

If an HIV/HCV coinfected patient has liver disease and is not on HIV medications, there should be consideration of treatment for HCV infection. If the therapy does not work, then I discuss starting HIV medications, regardless of CD4 count, since there is some information that suppression of HIV is also beneficial for liver health. I also review HCV treatment records of a patient who is referred to me to see if there is anything that could be optimized better for their HCV therapy that might lead me to think that re-treatment could be beneficial.

If an HIV/HCV coinfected patient is immunosuppressed, it may be better to first start HIV medications to suppress HIV and to attain better CD4 T cell numbers. Then a trial of HCV therapy can be considered.

The good news is that newer medications are in development for HCV that will hopefully benefit HIV/HCV coinfected patients as well - particularly those who have high viral loads with genotype 1 HCV infection.

It is important to avoid alcohol when a person has HCV...Also important to be immunized against hepatitis A and B.

Liver disease is extremely important in HIV/HCV coinfected patients, but I feel that we are making progress in understanding how important HIV suppression may be to liver health.