Life expectancy

Hi,

On HAART what is the longest people can live post infection to death?

Some people say a long 'normal' life... but data shows only up to around 10 years before conversion to AIDS then infection prone and risk of death within 5 years - usually 2-3.

Anyone got any idea/ data?

[Rob73!]

I don't really know what you are trying to ask Alan.

The thing is with HAART - because it's only been available for a relatively short period of time  we don;t know how long people will live taking the meds. Some of the early medications were very toxic and caused problems themselves which impacted ont he lifespan of the person taking them. As the science of HIV treatment has matured and is still maturing newer, better tolerated drug have become available.

The bottom line is this; we won;t know just how long a "normal" lifespan will be while taking HAART for at least another 20-40 years.

[kenzorio]

A lot depends on resistance to drugs. Many current drugs only came out a few years ago and they offer hope even to people who became resistant to some of the previous drugs. Also, the more drugs you have the less resistance becomes a problem since the possibilities are better to form a strong cocktail, reducing the possibility of resistance.

Another problem could be side effects from the medication. Again, this problem is much less with newer medication.

A final concern might be long term problems from infection with HIV itself. However, many people who had AIDS in the 80's and got access to drugs in time are living active lifes today with no apparent problems. Further, it seems that most problems related to chronic HIV are much reduced when the person is in proper treatment HAART.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV#Prognosis quotes studies showing a life-time expectancy of as much as 50 years from infection.

There is undoubtly going to be great further advances in HIV treatment in the years to come. And some scientists haven't even given up on finding a functional cure or even drugs that would allow full erradication of HIV from the body. RNAi treatments (which can be used to suppress specific genes, includign viral genes) also hold promise - a promising article on RNAi was recently in Nature in the context of cancer, however, the sample principles could be applied to HIV.
A guy was recently cured from HIV (i.e. no visible signs of infection remained) by getting a bone marrow transplant. While that's an invasive procedure and might not work in all cases, it at least shows that the thought of erradicating HIV from the body is not hopeless.