Question

1. A 37 year old accountant began to feel extremely unwell. He had been feeling under the weather for 8 weeks and had several infections during that time. He was a homosexual who did not believe in the use of condoms and had several sexual partners in the same week. Upon examination, you notice thickened white patches on the side of his tongue and purple lesions on his chest. You suspect the patients is infected with HIV and likely has AIDS

What lead you to this conclusion? How would you confirm your diagnosis? How would you treat? (10 pts)

Answer 1

Ans.

HIV viruses destroy the immune system of body and hence causes frequent infections.Early HIV infection called the acute infection stage may not exhibit any specific symptoms because the symptoms may be similar to common cold or other seasonal diseases,like fever, chills, skin rash etc. When this HIV infection is left untreated for a longer period, it develops into AIDS with more specific symptoms like recurrent fever,splotches under skin or mouth,skin rashes,bumps,lesion,rapid weight loss and various other problems associated with decreased immunity.

In the case mentioned above, the patient was suffering from regular fever and several infections for a period of 2 months which clearly shows that his immune system is compromised, a primary symptom of HIV infection. Further, presence of more specific symptoms,like the white patches on the side of his tongue and purple lesions on his chest, is an indication of HIV AIDS.

Diagnosis of HIV AIDS:

• Antibody/Antigen Tests- This is the basic test for diagnosing HIV infection. In this test is done for the presence of respective antigen and the production of antibody to fight the infection.
• Antibody Test - For finding HIV antibodies in blood or Saliva.
• Nucleic Acid Test - This is performed to see the presence of viral particle causing HIV in the blood.

Treatmeng of HIV AIDS:

HIV/AIDS is a disease that cannot be cured.It can only be controlled so that further infections and related complications can be prevented as much as possible. Medications called antiretroviral therapy is primarily adviced for HIV/AIDS. These are combination of various classes of drugs that can block the virus in 3 different ways. They are :

• Non-Nucleoside reverese transcriptase inhibitors- By inhibiting protein required by HIV to replicate itself. Example: Doravirine.
• Nucleoside or nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors - By blocking the enzyme reverse transcriptase necessary for reverse transcription,thus preventing the virus's from copying itself.Example: lamivudine.
• Protease inhibitors - Blocks HIV protease, a protein required for HIV to copy itself. Example: atazanavir.