meds and theraphie are good?

Jan 19, 2003

hi!My child is infected with hiv and i m wondering how long it will take to discover a surely vaccine ? My son is taking meds for 5 yearswith 3 changes of therapies . There would be the chance for one more theraphie?thank you .

Response from Dr. Boyle

A therapeutic vaccine is still some ways off, but progress is being made and some recent data support some optimism regarding this potential therapy. In addition, there are a number of drugs in the HIV therapy pipeline that will treat multi-drug resistant HIV, so even patients with significant resistance to the currently available drugs can look forward to some new drugs that should help to control their HIV. Drugs likely to be approved this year include FOS-amprenavir (amprenavir prodrug), atazanavir (a new protease inhibitor), emtricitabine (a nucleoside analogue similar to 3TC but with a longer half-life), and enfuvirtide (T-20, a fusion inhibitor that blocks HIV from entering the cell and is effective even in patients with a lot of resistance). Zerit XR, a once daily formulation of Zerit, just got approved. Drugs in the pipeline that are in late development and will have some effectiveness against resistant HIV include tipranavir (a protease inhibitor), TMC-125 (a non-nucleoside), and DAPD (a nucleoside analogue). So, you can expect a growing number of effective options and things should continue to improve.