adherence

...sticking exactly to your HIV treatment plan, which is important to make sure the medication keeps working.

antiretroviral treatment (ART)

...HIV treatment that uses three different drugs to target HIV in all its stages.

baseline

...refers to CD4 count and viral load before starting treatment; used to assess treatment effectiveness.

CD4 Count

...the number of  T-helper cells in your blood - should go up with HIV treatment; the higher, the better!

drug resistance

...means that treatment is not working, which can happen if HIV treatment is not taken as planned.

undetectable (virally suppressed)

...means the level of HIV in the blood is so low that you cannot spread it to others; goal is under 200 copies/ML.

viral load

...is the amount of HIV virus in a person's blood; goal is to keep viral load under 200  copies/mL.