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A count of the viral load is routine before the start of HIV treatment. [1] If the treatment is not changed, then viral load is monitored with testing every 3–4 months to confirm a stable low viral load. [1] Patients who are medically stable and who have low viral load for two years may get viral load counts every 6 months instead of 3. [1 ...
Standard anti-HIV IgG antibody tests cannot be used to reliably indicate a child's infection status before 18 months of age, so viral antigen tests are used. In the new system, HIV-infected children are classified into mutually exclusive categories according to three parameters: a) infection status b) clinical status c) immunologic status
At this point, seroconversion, the development of antibodies, occurs and the CD4 T cell counts begin to recover as the immune system attempts to fight the virus, marking the HIV set point. The higher the viral load at the set point, the faster the virus will progress to AIDS; the lower the viral load at the set point, the longer the patient ...
Suppressing the viral load to undetectable levels (<50 copies per ml) is the primary goal of ART. [56] This should happen by 24 weeks after starting combination therapy. [83] Viral load monitoring is the most important predictor of response to treatment with ART. [84] Lack of viral load suppression on ART is termed virologic failure.
The viral load of an infected person is an important risk factor in both sexual and mother-to-child transmission. [67] During the first 2.5 months of an HIV infection, a person's infectiousness is twelve times higher due to the high viral load associated with acute HIV. [65]
Declining CD4 T-cell counts are considered to be a marker of progression of HIV infection. A normal CD4 count can range from 500 cells/mm3 to 1000 cells/mm3. In HIV-positive people, AIDS is officially diagnosed when the count drops below 200 cells/μL or when certain opportunistic infections occur. This use of a CD4 count as an AIDS criterion ...
HIV/AIDS can be transmitted sexually, via contaminated needles or blood transfusions, and from mother to child during pregnancy, birth or breast-feeding. Contents Top
Changes in viral load are usually reported as a log change (in powers of 10). For example, a three log increase in viral load (3 log10) is an increase of 10 3 or 1,000 times the previously reported level, while a drop from 500,000 to 500 copies would be a three-log-drop (also 3 log10). [citation needed]