Injury News

On January 18th, a new drug was accepted by the Food and Drug Administration to treat HIV symptoms, according to the news article found on Reuters.com. This drug, called Intelence, will aid for treatment of patients who have seen resistance to other medications that they have taken to treat HIV. So Intelence is definitely not a cure or a prevention of HIV but to help treat the symptoms once you have HIV in your system. The Reuters.com article stated, “Close to 40 million people are infected with HIV,” which creates a high demand for this type of a drug in the market. The article also says that there are already over two dozen medications available for the treatment of HIV.

Intelence was discovered by the company Johnson & Johnson. It is to be administered for HIV patients who have proven resistance to other therapies they have tried. The article reported the most common side effects were skin rashes and nausea, and if you notice a rash to immediately contact your doctor. The long term side effects are unknown at this point due to the newness of the drug. Stated in the article, “The drug, also known as TMC125 or etravirine, is a new member of the family of AIDS-fighting drugs called non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI)… The new tablet is the first NNRTI to work for patients who have developed resistance to medicines in the same family.” So in response to the growing number of people seeing HIV symptoms, Intelence could be a positive alternative. And with all the medicines that are approved, hopefully the research will eventually lead to a cure of HIV, but until then we must rely on what the FDA has approved for public use.