Early Intervention

The current prevailing philosophy (if you will) in dealing with HIV-infected individuals is to get them on antiretroviral therapy (or drugs directed against this virus) as soon as possible – on the same day as blood tests turn positive. This accomplishes two goals. One, the patient who is taking the drugs soon becomes unable to transmit it to other individuals, thus stopping this epidemic at least at the level of one person. It also helps that individual specifically in keeping the reservoir of HIV at low levels and restoring the immune cells, which (as I had mentioned before) are lost when you do not treat this illness.