Glossary

seroreversion – the word for when the baby born to an HIV-positive mother, no longer has the mother’s antibodies to HIV.

open label – this means that a patient in a trial knows which treatment they are taking.

drug resistant (HIV) – HIV that is harder to treat because of genetic changes.

boosted-PI – a protease inhibitor taken with an additional dose of ritonavir. The ritonavir boost levels of the protease inhibitor by either increasing the initial drugs levels or reducing how quickly or reducing how quickly it is removed by your body. Ritonavir (itself a protease inhibitor) is currently the only drug used in this way. Other boosters are in development including cobicistat which has no direct anti-HIV activity.

intent-to-treat analysis (ITT) and on-treatment analysis (OT) – two important ways that trial results are analysed. ITT includes all patients who entered the study and is more rigorous. OT only calculates the response rates for people still on the randomised treatment.