In this issue

It’s really great news that people with multidrug-resistant HIV are now routinely expected to achieve an ‘undetectable’ viral load – as long they have expert HIV care and access to state-of-the-art HIV drugs.

And, as HIV treatment improves, fewer of us who are lucky enough to live in the UK (and have unrestricted access to HIV treatment and care) are likely to die of HIV-related illnesses.

But as we live longer, and are allowed to age, we are now more likely to die of all the other diseases that everyone else dies of.

Of course, there are many things we can do to make sure we live longer and healthier lives: take our anti-HIV combinations regularly and on time; don’t do drugs; stop smoking; drink only in moderation; eat well; exercise regularly; and reduce our chances of acquiring new, potentially dangerous, sexually transmitted infections by having safer sex – or at least having regular sexual health check-ups.

The choice of whether you do any of this, of course, is yours to make.

After all, there’s always the incredibly small chance that you might fall under that proverbial bus, despite your best efforts to live as healthy a life as possible.

Whatever you choose, make sure it’s a choice that you can live with.

page 3 This month’s Upfront finds that drug-resistant gonorrhoea is on the increase, particularly amongst HIV-positive gay men, and explains why this STI is becoming easier to acquire and harder to treat.

page 4 The main focus of this month’s ATU is how new drugs and smarter strategies have changed the rules for what used to be known as ‘salvage’ therapy. In From salvage to salvation? we discover why even the most treatment-experienced person can now expect to have an ‘undetectable’ viral load as their treatment goal.

page 6 Want to know more about the anti-HIV drugs that are available now to treat highly drug-resistant HIV? The good and bad points of them all (as far we know) are all here.

page 10 Three experts – Dr Anton Pozniak from London, Dr Clifford Leen from Edinburgh and Professor Sharon Walmsley from Toronto – explain the latest ‘salvage’ strategies.

page 12 Amongst the items in News in Brief is a new study which defines what puts you at risk for liver problems whilst taking anti-HIV drugs, as well as some surprising new findings for HPV in women and herpes in men.

page 14 Experts now tell us that HIV is a ‘chronic, manageable’ disease. In Great expectations, we wonder whether people with HIV can really expect to live a normal lifetime.