COLUMBUS, Ohio — HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day is June 5 and is an observance founded in 2014 by Tez Anderson, an activist diagnosed in 1983 and aging with HIV.
The National Institutes of Health points to the development of highly active antiretroviral therapy — also known as "combination antiretroviral therapy" — for improving the prognosis and life expectancy of people with HIV.
Clinical trials are critical to developing new treatments. Researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center report that they currently have 15 to 18 of them.
The principal investigator of the AIDS Clinical Trials Unit, Dr. Susan Koletar, said clinical trials have changed the course of not just HIV but diseases in general.
She was in medical school at the time of the first report of what is now known as HIV and AIDS.
“So I've seen HIV and HIV treatments progress over the last 30 years,” she said. “We went from nothing to drugs that were relatively toxic and didn't work that well come multiple drugs multiple times a day multiple side effects that were pretty good, but still had side effects to deal with now to some regimens that are one pill a day.”
Clinical trials in the early days were often the only way for people with HIV to get treatment. There are now studies not only for treatments but also for therapeutic vaccines.
In fact, the Ohio State Infectious Diseases Clinical Trials Unit is one of 34 sites nationwide that conduct federally sponsored research studies for treating HIV and AIDS, COVID-19, and other infectious diseases.
Contact them to find out how to participate in a clinical trial by calling 614.293.4854 or following this link.