WASHINGTON, Nov 6 (AFP) - Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have established that certain strains of the AIDS virus could develop a resistance to medication, according to a study released Tuesday.
A new class of HIV-1 virus could become resistant to the drug zidovudine -- more commonly known as AZT, ZDV or Retrovir -- which is part of the three-part drug "cocktail" used to treat those infected with HIV, researchers found.
The Atlanta-based authors of the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, discovered the new group of HIV-1 virus while testing 603 patients recently diagnosed as HIV-positive.
Among the 603 tested, 20 had HIV-1 with mutations in the reverse transcriptase gene, which differed from other strains that had been found to be drug-resistant.
CDC researchers said those infected with the new HIV-1 group could still be treated with AZT and related medications, but doctors must be careful to monitor its use as the virus could give rise to a resistant strain.
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