Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - July 23, 2003
Drug-resistant: An international collaboration to monitor the transmission of drug-resistant HIV has found that a significant number of HIV-positive Europeans carry a drug-resistant strain of the virus even before they have taken HIV treatment.
The prevalence of resistance mutations in people infected for less than one year was not significantly different to that observed in people infected for longer, suggesting transmitted resistance persists.
Resistance mutations were more common in people infected with HIV subtype B, the strain found most often in Europe, than with a non-B subtypes (11,3% versus 3,3%). This is to be expected given the longer history of exposure to HIV treatments in the industrialised West than in those regions where non-B subtypes are predominant.
Resistance was detected in 157 patients. About 17% were resistant to 3TC and close to 40% showed resistance to AZT and d4T.
The data support those who propose a role for resistance testing before selecting HIV therapy.
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