Across the globe, more than 39 million people are living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, including more than 1.3 million new HIV diagnoses last year. The majority of those afflicted -; approximately 76% -; have access to antiviral therapy that allows them to live with HIV as a chronic disease.
Sharilyn Almodóvar, Ph.D., from the Department of Immunology and Molecular Microbiology at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) School of Medicine and the TTUHSC Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, said that even with the widespread availability of therapy, people living with HIV are facing challenges.
The good news is that treated patients do not die of AIDS and that HIV is being treated as a chronic disease. Unfortunately, we still do not have a cure, and the longer people live with HIV, the more susceptible they become to comorbidities that affect their quality of life and may even cause premature death.”
Sharilyn Almodóvar, Ph.D., Department of Immunology and Molecular Microbiology, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Almodóvar said those comorbidities include neurological and metabolic disorders, liver and kidney diseases, cancers and cardiovascular diseases. They also include pulmonary hypertension, which is currently the focus of her lab’s research. Pulmonary hypertension is a condition in the lungs caused by severe narrowing of the arteries. It increases the pressure in these arteries and affects the right side of the heart, which is not anatomically equipped to handle such high pressures. If the