hello doc younge i has been positive from last 3 1/2 year. my cd4 counts are as follows year cd4 count 1998 221 2001 270 2002 630 currently i am taking a comination of 3 medecine that is staviduine 40mg, lamividuine 120mg and neverpine 200mg, sir i want to known upto what time i should continue this medecine. my doc say now we take 1 week druge holiday in every mounth. please advice me.

I'm not certain how to best advise you here; I (and many others) consider strategic treatment interruptions to be very experimental-- there is much to learn, including what time intervals, risks and benefits of this approach. Most concerning to me, is the fact that the different drugs that you take have different half lives in your body; thus, when you stop all therapy, you and your virus will effectively see monotherapy (during the period when the longest-lived drug stays around). This has the very real risk of causing drug resistance.

I think that a more rational way to consider interruption is to do this under the auspice of a clinical trial; if one is not readily available to you, it might be worth exploring the CPCRA's "SMART" trial (see your local CPCRA site for more information).

Buenos suerte, BY