Glossary

oesophagus – part of the gut between the throat and the stomach.

major mutation – a drug resistance mutation that have a big impact on whether a drug continues to work. This used to be called a primary mutation.

duration of ruptured membranes – time between when the mother’s waters break and the actual delivery.

randomise – in research, this is a way of decide at random which participants join each group. So neither you or your doctor chose which group you join in a research study. A common example is that the decision would be made similar to tossing a coin.

More information from the i-Base guide to HIV research.

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.