ABSTRACT
In a previous chapter written on this topic (1), the authors spent the great majority of the text discussing the variety of infectious diseases as causes for the HIV-infected individual to require intensive care. Written at the beginning of the highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) combination drug era, it could not yet reflect the changes in HIV/AIDS care that would soon result. The commonly used antiretroviral agents are listed in Table 1 (2). This therapy by ‘‘slowing and then stopping the virus train’’ (Table 2) resulted in suppression of viral replication and at least partial immune reconstitution in many individuals. The sum and substance of this therapy was to dramatically decrease the mortality of individuals with HIV/AIDS primarily by the prevention of the great host of opportunistic infections from profound defects in cellular immune function.
