USMA - DNCB vs. Conventional Treatments

DNCB versus Conventional Treatments

Conventional treatments for HIV disease pose serious problems.

The conventional treatment for HIV disease in the industrialized countries is antiretroviral therapy (ART), using combinations of nucleoside analogs, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors. Recently, a particular version of ART, Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), has become the standard of care for HIV disease ³⁰. HAART requires that high doses of antiretrovirals, including a protease inhibitor, be taken in accordance with a rigorous medication schedule.

The introduction of HAART has resulted in a dramatic improvement in the longevity and quality of life for hundreds of thousands of HIV patients, almost all of whom live in the industrialized world and are in a position to receive those treatments. But as is well established in the literature, these treatments come with severe limitations:

Some patients receive no benefits from HAART.
Some have such severe side effects that they cannot continue HAART.
Many patients find the medication schedule so demanding that they do not comply with it, with the usual result that HIV mutates to resistant forms not affected by HAART.
The result is that, all told, it is estimated that about one third of those who have access to HAART do not or cannot use this treatment.
The cost of the drugs alone for HAART is on the order of $15,000 per year.
For over 95% of people infected with HIV worldwide, neither they nor their governments can afford HAART.

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