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Understanding HIV Treatment
How HIV Works
Classes of HIV Medications
HIV Treatment Goals
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Understanding HIV Treatment

Knowing how HIV treatment works is important and can help you understand the need to take your medications as prescribed. HIV medications are used to help control the replication of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in your body and to help slow the progression of HIV-related disease.

When used in combination, HIV medications can reduce the amount of HIV in your blood (referred to as your "viral load"). Although HIV medications can treat HIV infection, they cannot cure HIV or AIDS and have not been shown to lower your chance of passing HIV to others.

To better understand how HIV medications work and the goals of therapy, please review the following topics:

How HIV Works
How HIV Works
HIV is a virus that attacks your immune system, making it less able to fight infection and disease. Read more.
Classes of HIV Medications
Classes of HIV medications
There are four classes of HIV medications available, and they each fight HIV in a different way. Read more.
HIV Treatment Goals
HIV treatment goals
The two main goals of HIV therapy are to keep your viral load as low as possible and your CD4 cell count high. Read more.