Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
AFRICA: Drug-resistant HIV threat looming
JOHANNESBURG, 9 September 2010 (PlusNews) - HIV-positive patients about to start antiretroviral treatment are warned not to skip even the occasional dose of their medication because of the virus' ability to mutate rapidly and become drug resistant; but what about patients who have never taken treatment and already have a drug-resistant strain of the virus?
In Africa the extent of "primary", or transmitted HIV drug resistance in treatment-naïve (never treated) patients is largely unknown, but a recent study at three clinics in Lusaka, Zambia, found that nearly 6 percent of patients about to start HIV treatment for the first time already had resistance to standard first-line antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.
- snip
"I understand we have a million people on treatment, but if we don't think about the next 20 years, it'll be like the problem we have now with drug-resistant TB"
read more
JOHANNESBURG, 9 September 2010 (PlusNews) - HIV-positive patients about to start antiretroviral treatment are warned not to skip even the occasional dose of their medication because of the virus' ability to mutate rapidly and become drug resistant; but what about patients who have never taken treatment and already have a drug-resistant strain of the virus?
In Africa the extent of "primary", or transmitted HIV drug resistance in treatment-naïve (never treated) patients is largely unknown, but a recent study at three clinics in Lusaka, Zambia, found that nearly 6 percent of patients about to start HIV treatment for the first time already had resistance to standard first-line antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.
- snip
"I understand we have a million people on treatment, but if we don't think about the next 20 years, it'll be like the problem we have now with drug-resistant TB"
read more