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Glossary

Selected words and phrases

generic drug – drug supplied under its common (chemical) name.

peer support – support provided by people who share the same experience or problem. HIV peer support is provided by other HIV-positive people.

diarrhoea – when stools (faeces) is less than firm. This can range from loose to being very watery. As a medical condition it is usually also associated with needing to go to the toilet more frequently.

For example, this is commonly defined as three or more liquid/watery faeces over 24 hour period.

See this information from the i-Base guide to side effects for ways to manage and treat diarrhoea.
https://i-base.info/guides/side/diarrhoea

virology – the study of viruses.

codon – the word for the junction on genetic material (DNA or RNA) occupied by three nucleotides (or bases) to form an amino acid. In HIV it is most used when refering to drug resistance. There is an amino acid at each codon and the codons are numbered (starting from 1) for each section of the HIV gene. For example the mutation M184V in RT refers to a mutation change at codon 184 in the reverse transcriptase gene.