Hello, my husband is from Africa and after 14 months of waiting he recently arrived in the US, where I live. He is on HIV meds and when he arrived to the US his CD4 was 202 and it has since dropped to 142. His viral load was extremely high in Africa but now is undetectable. Today his throat is covered with yellow gunk and he is having severe diarrhea. We have an excellent doctor in our city but these new developments are scaring us. Is thrush something that signifies severe AIDS? Should we be concerned? Does all of this mean that he is at an advanced stage of the disease? Is he going to die from AIDS? What can we do?

Thank you for having this website. I eagerly await an answer, if you can.....thanks...

The fact that his viral load is now undetectable means that he is doing well with his medications and so should see gradual improvement in his immune function. This will lead to less infections happening. Thrush is are marker of HIV and a weakened immune system but is only defined as AIDS if it extends into the gullet (oesophagus), a CD4 below 200 in the US classification system(but not in Europe) counts as defining AIDS. This is rather arbitrary and now he is responding to therapy the low CD4 count will recover to a safer range. Chances are, now he has access to care and has responded to therapy that his medications will keep him well indefinitely...the key to this is reliable tablet taking and regular monitoring I hope this helps Regards graeme Moyle