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Glossary

Selected words and phrases

reinfection – catching HIV a second time. When an HIV-positive becomes infected with second strain or type of HIV. Sometimes called superinfection.

KS – Kaposi’s sarcoma.

Cancer: lymphoma and sarcoma.

matched – in clinical trials matched refers to each group having similar age, gender, ethnicity, HIV duration, health etc in a study.

clinical failure – when you develop new symptoms and illnesses even though you are on treatment. See virological failure.

reverse transcriptase – an enzyme unique to HIV. It is used to convert single-strand RNA into double-strand DNA. This is needed before HIV’s genetic material can be integrated in the human DNA. HIV drugs that stop this process are called reverse transcriptase inhibitors (RTIs).