Jennifer Matthews: This woman has HIV.
Pamela Simpson: I have been positive for eighteen years.
Jennifer Matthews: This man has it too.
John Paul Womble: The moment that I tested positive, the sins I thought was guilt and stupidity.
Jennifer Matthews: John Paul grew up knowing what HIV was, his father had it.
John Paul Womble: He got hit quickly so he started to have legions that developed on various parts of his body.
Jennifer Matthews: For anyone who has it, getting the right medication when first diagnosed and the right dose can be the difference between living and dying.
Charles Hick: Our goal of therapy is to be so potent that the virus cannot continue to grow.
Jennifer Matthews: HIV can change so fast if doctors try one drug that doesn't work, the virus may have the chance to change and become resistant to more drugs.
Charles Hick: It is forever evolving.
Jennifer Matthews: Researchers at Duke University had developed a new blood test to identify which patients will be drug resistant to which drugs. Here the green dots are drug resistant genes.
Male Speaker: We know that roughly about 50% of those genome actually is resistant mutations.
Jennifer Matthews: There are more than twenty drugs available to fight HIV. Now this test will tell researchers what won't work, so they can figure out what will.
Charles Hick: We now expect that people are going to live 30, 40, 50, 60 years after they're diagnosed with HIV.
Jennifer Matthews: And that's exactly what John Paul and Pamela are hoping for.
Pamela Simpson: I feel good, yeah.
John Paul Womble: This virus is not going to control me. I'm going to control what I do with it.
Jennifer Matthews: This new test may help them do just that. This is Jennifer Matthews reporting.
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