How much longer do I have?

Hello and welcome to e health forum. ‎

The HIV viral load test measures the number of HIV copies in a milliliter of blood.‎

A high HIV viral load is ‎‎10,000 copies to 100,000 range. It can be as high as 1 million or more.‎

In your case, the HIV viral load is very high, which indicates that HIV is reproducing at a faster rate and the disease may progress more quickly.


CD4 cells are a type of white blood cell that fights infection. Another name for them is T-helper cells. CD4 cells are ‎made in the spleen, lymph nodes, and thymus gland, which are part of the lymph or infection-fighting system.‎

Along with other tests, the CD4 count helps tell how strong your immune system is, indicates the stage of your HIV ‎disease, guides treatment, and predicts how your disease may progress. Keeping your CD4 count high can reduce ‎complications of HIV disease and extend your life.‎

A normal CD4 count is from 500 to 1,500 cells per cubic millimeter of blood. It is more important to pay attention to ‎the pattern of the change in the counts rather than to any one test result. In general, HIV disease is progressing if ‎the CD4 count is going down. This means the immune system is getting weaker and you are more likely to get sick. In ‎some people, CD4 counts can drop dramatically, even going down to zero. ‎

In your case, the CD 4 count of 178 is very low. As mentioned above, a correlation with your previous test results is ‎needed to analyze your specific condition currently. ‎

In case, your count is reducing over time, you may either need initiation or change of Anti retroviral therapy (ART) , ‎or Specific treatment or prevention of opportunistic infections. ‎

I hope this helps.