photo by steed media service

The African American community is statistically the most heavily impacted ethnic group in terms of the numbers and percentages of people infected by HIV/AIDS nationwide. For over two decades, health professionals like Dr. Debbie Hagins have been treating drug-resistant patients with antiretroviral medications and medicinal cocktails. On Friday, Jan. 18, 2008, the FDA approved Intelence, which is the newest medication in its class for adults who have developed a resistance to many of the medications that are currently available. “Now, we have another choice to manage people successfully with HIV/AIDS,” shares an enthusiastic Dr. Hagins about the most important medical breakthrough in the last 10 years. “My clinic [had] been doing some clinical trials involving Intelence for a little over a year before it received FDA approval.”

The majority of patients who take Intelence have limited treatment options and the AIDS virus is detectable in their bloodstream. “Newly infected patients have the virus that is already resistant to medication and for those individuals Intelence is a viable addition to their regimen,” Hagins adds.

Over the years, Dr. Hagins has treated patients who have become drug resistant for a variety of reasons. She met her first HIV-positive patient in 1987 while still in medical school and started treating patients in 1992 once she finished her residency. -yvette caslin

Send this Article to a Friend
facebook