Question
My 25 year old son has been diagnosed HIV-positive…
10 April 2008. Related: All topics, Newly diagnosed.
My 25 year old son has recently been diagnosed with HIV. He has CD4 count of 264 and 251,000 viral load.
I have read about stages of HIV I-IV. What stage is he? What should we do next?
Answer
Hi
I’m sorry to hear your news, but in many ways it is better that he was diagnosed now while he is still well, when treatment is likely to work well and safely. One of the best things you can do is to collect information and learn about HIV and treatment, which I know you are already doing.
Access to treatment, when to start treatment, and which drugs are used vary depending on where in the world you live. The UK and the US and many other countries have national treatment guidelines and the World Health Organisation (WHO) also produces international guidelines.
Most guidelines recommend treatment at or before the CD4 count drops to 200 cells/mm3 with US guidelines recommending when below 350 cell/mm3 and 2008 draft UK guidelines also moving to around 350.
Your question about your son’s stage, is really dependent on how likely he has been HIV positive.
If this is a very recent infection, then his CD4 count could increase again by itself and his viral load could still be coming down after his bodies first response at fighting the virus. In this case you need to wait until these results have settled before any decision to use treatment but he is likely to be Stage 1.
If he is likely to have been HIV-positive for several years and this is a chronic infection, then this will depend on his symptoms. A description of WHO clinical stages is at this link.
A non-technical guide to treatment is included here.
You might also want to find out about local support groups and support organisation that could help you.
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