Advice about HIV viral load

[tomazbodner]

20 hours ago, simon43 said:

Thanks for all your replies and advice.  To be honest, I was in a state of shock when I saw her.  My young female cook at my little hotel died of untreated Aids, and this is my niece who I have known since her birth, and for whom I was sponsor and 'guardian' at her school because her family had no money to send her to school.  I hadn't seen her 4 about 3 years, and I understand that she has been getting sicker for about 1 year now.  She has never worked in a bar etc, and has had only a few Thai boyfriends - so I guess she got infected from her BF (who is off the scene).

 

I say a viral load of 800 because I asked her mom if they had measured this and she said 800.  But the girl looks far too thin for that to be true.  White blood cell count maybe.

 

In any case, she has had absolutely no medication for HIV. Her local government hospital confirmed HIV diagnosis months ago, but only sold her an antifungal for her lungs - she actually only coughs a little bit. They never mentioned any other drugs because they knew that her family is too poor to buy them.

 

I guess my immediate practical problem is to get her to a doctor who will prescribe the required medication (I will cover the costs of course).  I think I need to ask her/her mom to visit her doctor again with a list of the drugs and see if he will agree to prescribe them.....

I you can take her to Bangkok, the HIV-NAT clinic is right at the junction of Sarasin road and Ratchadamri road. It is ran by Thai Red Cross and has a pharmacy inside.

 

I got vaccines there and saw others getting HIV medications from the pharmacy which seemed not to be expensive. I don't know if that's just for basic test but for Thais who registered themselves (you don't have to and can test anonymously), the HIV test was free. It would make sense to test the whole lot of STDs as that could affect the symptoms. Hepatitis, for example, is much easier to contract than HIV,  and a secondary infection could contribute to deterioration of her health.

[KhunLA]

5 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

I you can take her to Bangkok, the HIV-NAT clinic is right at the junction of Sarasin road and Ratchadamri road. It is ran by Thai Red Cross and has a pharmacy inside.

 

I got vaccines there and saw others getting HIV medications from the pharmacy which seemed not to be expensive. I don't know if that's just for basic test but for Thais who registered themselves (you don't have to and can test anonymously), the HIV test was free. It would make sense to test the whole lot of STDs as that could affect the symptoms. Hepatitis, for example, is much easier to contract than HIV,  and a secondary infection could contribute to deterioration of her health.

They, RC, won't write scripts or dispense without a script.  Most docs won't write a script without her CD4 & viral load results.  So you'll need that wherever you go.

[bbko]

On 5/26/2022 at 9:28 AM, simon43 said:

What medicine or intervention is possible?

Is she relying on you for medical advice??  She needs to be followed by a doctor.

[tomazbodner]

2 hours ago, KhunLA said:

They, RC, won't write scripts or dispense without a script.  Most docs won't write a script without her CD4 & viral load results.  So you'll need that wherever you go.

True but HIV-NAT has doctors in there as well. Even you just want to take a blood test, you need to talk to doc first, and then go back to doctor to read results for you. I would imagine those same doctors write prescriptions.

 

In my case it was just vaccine, had to have blood test first, which showed I had no antibodies, then went down to pay for vaccine, then to pharmacy to get them, and back to doctor to administer them. That was Hepatitis A+B vaccine.

 

HOWEVER - when going back for 3rd shot they told me they've ran out and I should go to hospital (admittedly considerably more expensive) but there they picked up on the schedule which was a month off, so I was told to come back later. Hence they might be cheap but it's worth rechecking what they are doing as it's not all always perfect.

[LivinLOS]

On 5/27/2022 at 3:00 AM, Sheryl said:

Atripla is a brand name for an expensive import made by Gilead. It is a combination of the drugs Efavirenz, emitricitabine and tenofovir.

 

The exact same thing is available in  locally made generic equivalent, brand names GPO-Vir-T and Teevir. Once these  become available, Atriple brand went off market here.  Has nothing to do with any change of regimen, rather is the result of the Thai government's use of "compulsory licensing" to manufacture local generics of patent drugs when deemed a public health necessity.

 

I am aware of this I just dont know why the person is paying for strocin truvada when they apparently can pay less for different 1 a days or even get them free..