Over one third of all new HIV diagnoses in the UK are in people whose CD4 count is already less than 200 cells\/mm3. This is higher in African people and highest still in African men. Anyone whose CD4 count drops below 200 is at risk of serious opportunistic infections and the lower it drops, the higher the chance that the infection will require more toxic drugs, and may even be fatal.<\/p>\n
Starting treatment before the CD4 count falls below 200 is the best time to use treatment. You are likely to get less side effects and the treatment is less likely to cause ‘immune reconstitution illnesses’. This is a term that describes serious illnesses become active in people whose immune system become dramatically stronger very quickly because of HIV treatment, and which starts an infection that waspresent but that was not previously diagnosed.<\/p>\n
You can still respond well to treatment – even if you start when your CD4 count is less than 50 cells\/mm3<\/sup> – but you are asking the medications to do a much more difficult job.<\/p>\n