Infezione da HIV oggi: soppressione virologica, ottimizzazione della terapia, qualità della vita

The 18th ICAR National Congress was recently held in Catania to review HIV, innovative therapies, and prevention. Over the years, research has made HIV infection a chronic condition with the potential to achieve virological suppression, and therefore non-transmissibility of the virus. However, many goals remain to be achieved, including increasing awareness and prevention, identifying the undetected, optimizing therapies, and managing long-term therapy in a personalized and multidisciplinary manner to maintain virological suppression even in people with other conditions. Rendering HIV a chronic condition also means focusing on quality of life, but how can optimizing antiretroviral therapy contribute to the psychological, physical, and social well-being of people with HIV? Until recently, changing therapy was a necessity dictated by lack of response or the development of resistance. Today, a therapeutic switch is possible even in people with good viral control to optimize therapy. In the case of a switch, the new therapy must have certain characteristics that make it safe, effective, capable of maintaining or improving treatment adherence, and ensuring a good quality of life for people with HIV. Over the years, many information and awareness campaigns have been promoted for people with HIV, with the aim of improving their understanding of the infection and encouraging the adoption of behaviors geared towards long-term health and well-being. An example of communication that connects clinicians and people with HIV is the Choose You project and, in particular, the Long Term Health webinar series, which can help inform and raise awareness on topics useful for achieving long-term well-being. We discussed this with: ANDREA DE VITO, Sassari University Hospital MARIA VITTORIA COSSU, ASST Fatebenefratelli Sacco LORENZO BADIA, Rimini Local Health Authority