Nursing Pharmacology: Antiviral Drugs
Antiviral Drugs
Anti-viral drugs with activity against HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus)
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Introduction: Human Retroviruses
An early member of the family of viruses described as retroviruses is Rous sarcoma virus, which causes tumors in chickens.5
This retrovirus was so described over 100 years ago.
Retroviruses utilize an enzyme, reverse transcriptase, first identified in retroviruses.
Retroviruses depend on reverse transcriptase associated with the virion to make a fully double-stranded DNA copy from their single-stranded RNA virion genome.
Later, this DNA copy is translocated to the nucleus where a viral enzyme, integrase, catalyzes insertion of viral DNA into the cellular chromosome at random locations.5
Reverse transcriptase was discovered by Howard Temin and David Baltimore in 1971.5
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Studies indicated that retroviruses could integrate a DNA copy of their RNA genome into infected cellular chromosomes.8
Later, Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus demonstrated that Rous sarcoma virus infection could cause tumors secondary to alteration of the cellular gene (termed "oncogene") due to the virus.9
AIDS was first identified as a possible disease in 1981 when the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in the United States noted an unexpected occurrence of Pneumocystis jirovecii, a fungus, (previously described as P. carinii) pneumonia in five previously healthy homosexual men in Los Angeles.2
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Also, Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) with or without P. jiroveci pneumonia in 26 previously healthy homosexual men in New York and Los Angeles.
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AIDS was also identified in:
Male and female injection drug users
Hemophiliacs in blood transfusion recipients
Among female sexual partners of men with AIDS.
In addition, the disease was also found in infants born to mothers with AIDS or with an injection drug use history.2
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