acute infection – early infection (first few months with HIV).
Glossary
Selected words and phrases
genotype (or genotypic) – This term has several common uses:
1. a general term for the molecular structure of a living organism or virus.
2. a test that looks at the structure of an organism of virus (ie genotype resistance test looks for changes in the virus structure – called mutations).
3. a category for different types of similar viruses – ie hepatitis C has many subtypes, referred to as genotype-1, genotype-2 etc. HCV genotype is the strongest predictor of response to hepatitis C treatment.
See also phenotype.
elite controller (EC) – if your viral load stays undetectable for more than five years without ART you are an elite controller.
Elite controllers also have a very good CD4 count (always above 500 cells/mm3) that stays at a similar level over many years.
Even with this good immune response, ART is still generally recommended in the long-term.
This is because over decades – some ECs have been undetectable for more than 20 years – there is a concern that low level HIV in different body compartments like the brain, might lead to accumulative serious damage that isn’t easy to detect until it is too late.
This is a real concern, though evidence is limited because of the rarity of ECs.
See: long-term slow progressor (LTSP)/long-term non-progessor (LTNP).
Minimum Effective Concentration (MEC) – the lower level of a drug in the body that will still be effective.
BD (or bid) – a short hand term for medication dosing that means ‘twice-daily’.