Glossary

MSM – men who have sex with men.

half-life (T1/2) – the time taken a drug to clear from the highest concentration to half this level. Drugs have different half-lives in different compartments (ie half-life in blood can be different from the half-life inside a cell). It take 5 x the half-live for a drug to be considered cleared.

adefovir – anti-viral drug used to treat hepatitis B.

NRTI – Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor, a type of HIV drug – also called ‘nuke’ or ‘nucleoside analogue’.

3TC (lamivudine). abacavir, AZT, FTC (emtricitabine), d4T (stavudine), ddI (didanosine) all belong to this class.

Tenofovir DF and tenofovir alafenamide (TAF) are a nucleotide analogues which is similar enough to be counted as part of this class.

Drug targets in the virus life cycle.

coronary heart disease (CHD) refers to the three main arteries that supply blood from the heart.

A coronary by-pass is a surgical operation to provide a new route for blood to reach the heart when coronary arteries become blocked.