People who fall into these categories have a higher risk of infected with COVID-19.

Old age

• People above 50 is 10 times fatal than people below 40 for those who’ve contracted with Covid-19

Diabetes

• Fatality rate for people who’ve contracted diabetes is between 4 – 13 higher than people who doesn’t have diabetes.

HIV

• Risk of being fatal when contracted with Covid-19 increases by factor of 2.75 times for people who contracted HIV, doesn’t matter if they are under antiretroviral drugs or not. This is coming from scientists in South Africa’s Western Cape.

active Tuberculosis

• For people having TB, risk of fatal increase factor of 2.58. TB damages lungs and perhaps leaving people more vunerable to COVID-19.

These studies however is still too small to be taken as conclusive, something to take in mind when reading the numbers.

One thing they have in common is weaken/compromised immune system.

Advise is to eat well, exercise, rest, and take precautions as advised by your local health body.

Source: sciencemag.org, avert.org

1. Fatigue and night sweats: After HIV infection, patients often feel fatigue and night sweats. They usually have no strength and sleep at night, which indicates that there is a problem in the human body.

2, rash: rash is one of the most important symptoms of early HIV infection.

3, lymph node enlargement: diameter 0.5cm or more, slowly increase, tough, slidable round hard core, the most common neck.

4, oral Candida infection: commonly known as thrush, thrush is the most common AIDS opportunistic infection, also known as Xuekou disease.

5, rapid weight loss: rapid weight loss is a common problem after HIV infection. If you don’t lose weight, a rapid weight loss is a serious problem.

6, diarrhea: diarrhea is one of the most annoying AIDS symptoms, because diarrhea can lead to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, opportunistic infection into the intestines may occur diarrhea.

7, fat metabolism disorders and lactic acidosis: the side effects of AIDS drugs is no secret, the side effects of drugs are fat metabolism disorders. After taking AIDS drugs for a period of time, in addition to typical symptoms such as nausea and diarrhea, patients may experience muscle pain, fatigue, increased nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain and other symptoms. These symptoms mean that patients are likely to have symptoms. Lactic acidosis has occurred.

8. Depression and headache: The dual causes of psychology and physiology will cause nervous system problems in people living with HIV, psychological stress caused by HIV infection, and damage to brain cells by HIV.

9. Peripheral neuropathy: Peripheral neuropathy is a common symptom after HIV infection. Peripheral neuropathy can cause damage to the hands, feet, mouth and lips, but this damage may not only be the result of HIV, most In the case, it is caused by side effects of some AIDS drugs.

The signs of HIV in the mouth are as below:

Dry Mouth and Tooth Decay
Candidiasis (thrush)
Canker sores (apthous ulcers)

Cold sores (herpes simplex)
Gum disease (periodontitis)
Hairy leukoplakia
Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Enlarged saliva glands
Shingles (herpes zoster)
Oral warts (human papillomavirus):

Other than that you will notice:

Swollen lymph nodes on the side of the neck or under jaw: Swollen lymph nodes on the side of the neck or under jaw are the most common. They may represent an infection around that area, such as a tooth infection or abscess, throat infection, viral illness, or upper respiratory infection

 

 

Oraquick the only saliva HIV Test Kit you can perform in home. It’s USFDA certified perfectly safe and accurate for those who don’t prefer blood testing.

According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least one in seven Americans living with HIV don’t even know it! This is quite alarming since such individuals are likely to transmit the virus to other partners without knowing. Besides, it is necessary to find out one’s HIV status to allow for earlier treatment to extend life expectancy as well as protect their loved ones from contracting the infection.

A recommendation by the same institution is that everybody between the age of 13 and 64 must get tested at least once in their lifetime. Regular testing is, however, recommendable especially when indulges in unprotected sex with multiple partners or uses drug injections.

It is not surprising that many people fear to present themselves to the voluntary counseling and testing centers for privacy reasons. However, this should never be an excuse to not getting tested and knowing your status. Currently, home HIV tests are available. The two common home HIV tests are the Home Access HIV-1 Test System and OraQuick In-Home HIV test. These are available online and locally available in chemists and hospitals.

If you choose to order your home test online through phone, always ensure that the HIV test is FDA approved beforehand to ensure safety and accuracy are guaranteed.

Home Access HIV-1 Test System

This is a home collection kit which allows you to do a personal test on your blood sample and getting it delivered to a licensed lab where you will call to get your results after a day or so. The amazing fact about this test is that it is anonymous and follow up test can be performed immediately if the result turns out to be positive. After the process, the manufacturer offers confidential counseling and referral treatment. This type of test on a sample of blood collected at home finds infection later than tests undertaken at the lab using blood from the veins but much earlier compared to test conducted on oral fluids.

An excellent place to order this type of HIV test kit is Amazon among other reputable sites. However, Home Access Health Corporation has strongly come out as among the best places to seek the HIV-1 test system and be guaranteed over 99.9 percent accuracy within a day. They have been FDA approved and offer phone counseling. This type of test has been evaluated in various multi-center clinical studies in the US and proven to be as accurate as tests done by doctors and hospitals.

Firstly, i would like to congratulate both Atomo Diagnostics and Mylan for forming these powerful alliance to help the lower income people to have access to these HIV test kit.

And another congratulations to Atomo Diagnostics for secured the European CE-Mark in October last year. The test is a qualitative immunoassay designed to detect antibodies to HIV type 1 and type 2 in human whole blood.

For those who do not know, Atomo HIV Test kit is indeed “very canggih” unique i would say, because personally i like Atomo HIV test kit design, thanks to the Founder and CEO John Kelly.

Mylan received exclusive rights for commercialisation of in-vitro HIV rapid diagnostic tests in more than 100 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Latin America.

HIV testing rates have improved but expanding access to the tests is still a challenge in certain countries.

Mylan noted that offering point-of-care self-tests in community-based settings can increase the proportion of people aware of their HIV status, in turn enabling treatment or prevention.

Through the new partnership, the companies will provide all-in-one test devices, which are designed to deliver better functionality and are easy to use compared to existing multi-component rapid diagnostic tests.

Mylan CEO Heather Bresch said: “Our partnership with Atomo to supply HIV rapid diagnostic tests for self-testing is an important step in our collective goal of preventing HIV infections and expanding treatment.”

HIV Self Test by Atomo Diagnostics secured the European CE-Mark in October last year. The test is a qualitative immunoassay designed to detect antibodies to HIV type 1 and type 2 in human whole blood.

Atomo Diagnostics founder and CEO John Kelly said: “This strategic partnership will mean that the products designed by Atomo can be introduced to more than 100 countries, so that millions of people will have access to award-winning rapid tests.

“We believe that Mylan is the ideal partner to ensure that our HIV self-test products have maximum impact in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”

Mylan intends to globally launch the Mylan HIV Self-Test early next year.

Let me know your comments about Atomo HIV Test kit.

 

Knowledge of the Day 

“Global pharmaceutical company Mylan launch two new HIV treatments, Symfi Lo™ and Cimduo™, which were approved in February by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). ”

Participants taking tenofovir/emtricitabine (Truvada) for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in two major studies experienced modest declines in kidney function that were associated with higher tenofovir drug levels and older age, according to studies presented in a poster discussion session entitled “It’s complicated: renal function and STIs in PrEP users” at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2016) last week in Boston. Together, these findings indicate that while Truvada PrEP is safe for most people, ongoing kidney function monitoring is important to promptly catch any problems that may occur.

Tenofovir disoproxil (Viread, also in the Atripla, Eviplera or Complera, and Stribild single-tablet regimens) has been used in HIV treatment for more than a decade and is generally considered safe and well-tolerated, but it can cause kidney damage and bone loss in some people.

For this reason, regular kidney function tests are recommended for people taking Truvada for PrEP and those with pre-existing kidney problems are advised not to use it. The US product label for Truvada states that it should not be used for PrEP in people with creatinine clearance below 60 ml/min, and if a decrease is observed providers should “evaluate potential causes and re-assess potential risks and benefits of continued use.”

Reports to date from PrEP clinical trials – which tried to exclude people with known kidney impairment – have not revealed notable kidney problems. But sometimes uncommon toxicities only show up after many more people are using a drug.

Hi Thanks for all interesting answers. I have been on PrEP since a year and I am just fine. I read that Isentress is adding a security since it does stop the viral integration. Why does not a PrEP regim include Isentress since it is recommended as PEP. I have decided to add Isentress for my PrEP regim and I dont feel any side effects.

Response from Dr. Young

Pre-exposure prophylaxis, PrEP is a very highly effective component for prevention of HIV infection. Added to our customary discussion about condoms and safer sex, PrEP adds in excess of 95% additional prevention effectiveness among adherent people.

While three drug therapy is the standard for treatment of HIV infection, pre-exposure prevention of HIV (PrEP) likely only requires 1 or 2 medications.

Large clinical trials among men who have sex with men, transgender women, heterosexuals and injection drug users show us that two drug (and perhaps, even 1 good drug) is enough to prevent HIV infection. That’s good enough data for me.

While raltegravir is an exceptionally well-tolerated HIV medication (and recommended in post-exposure prophylaxis), there’s little data supporting it’s use in PrEP. Adding Isentress to your Truvada adds substantial cost as well as additional pills and an additional dose of medication- perhaps risking the optimal adherence that is so critical to your PrEP success.

So, all that considered, I don’t think that your Isentress is a needed addition to your PrEP regimens.