HIV and AIDS Drugs

There are more than 20 approved antiretroviral drugs.

HIV treatment is also referred to as antiretroviral treatment, ART, antiretroviral drugs, antiretrovirals or ARVs. There are more than 20 approved antiretroviral drugs used to treat and manage HIV infection. Antiretroviral drugs fall into five main groups. Each treatment group has a different role to play in preventing HIV from making copies of itself inside the body.

Continued research and development of antiretroviral drugs have meant that HIV treatment is becoming more effective at stopping HIV from replicating. Compared to previous decades, when HIV treatment involved taking many individual drugs each day, today, many people have access to combination treatment, which is a number of different drugs combined into one tablet – making treatment much easier to take.

This page points to information about existing and new antiretroviral drugs, which groups they fall under as well as detailed information about the type of side effects people experience when taking certain antiretroviral treatment.