Public Health & Health Science Division, ULAB

Although the development of antiretroviral treatment has been successful in mitigating and suppressing HIV/AIDS infections globally, it has not changed the fact that 1.7 million new infections have occurred in 2019.The objective of the literature review is to determine the current treatments for HIV and their shortcomings, future approaches using nanotechnology, and the current related health disparities which may be mitigated by advances in this field.  Both globally and in the United States, the main demographic of HIV/AIDs victims are from disadvantaged communities that lack access to treatment and prevention education. Despite the use of antiretroviral treatment reaching global access and its successful efforts, there are still many challenges with the containment of the virus since the treatment does not effectively suppress the virus. Future approaches using nanotechnology are quite varied in the types of particles used but are mainly used to increase delivery efficiency and show promising results in the pre-clinical and clinical stage. There is significant evidence that nanotechnology can increase the efficacy of drugs targeting HIV and several implications that these improved drugs can help mitigate some health disparities on the national and global level.