Dear Experts,

I contracted HIV in October, and found out about it in December after having my acute illness. My CD4 was 930 and my viral load was 21,069. My doctor has put me on Trizivir. I was wondering about your opinions on my treatment. Even though Trizivir is a combination of 3 drugs, is this one medication enough to keep the virus at bay? Any additional thoughts or comments are welcome. Thanks.

Thanks for your question.

There have been several important recent studies with Trizivir for the treatment of treatment-naive persons with HIV infection. The upshot of these is that the drug appears to do very well (the same as protease inhibitor)persons with lower viral loads (<100,000)- like yourself. There is some debate as to whether the same extends to persons with higher viral loads.

The drug is clearly very simple to take with low pill count, and in general low side effect profile; and for persons with low viral loads, I use the drug with frequency.

The real question though, is how is your viral load responding to Trizivir treatment. If the VL is undetectable, then I'd be very happy and just continue with usual VL monitoring. If the viral load is remains detectable after 8-12 weeks, then it would be worth assessing why-- poor adherence? side effects, or asking if additional therapy (intensification) would be of benefit.

Good luck, BY