Dramatic Death-Rate Drop

Good news for HIVers: Successful antiretroviral therapy has made it far less likely you'll succumb to the virus in the near future, according to an analysis of 16,500 HIVers living in Europe, Canada, and Australia. Before protease inhibitors were introduced in 1996, HIVers had a mortality rate 41 times that of HIV-negative adults, according to the study. But the rate dropped by nearly 25% within just one year and steadily decreased to reaching just six times the norm by 2006, according to the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But when looking at just those recently infected, the data is astonishing: During the first five years of infection, HIVers diagnosed in the year 2000 and beyond had a mortality rate similar to that of the general population.