Close
Fears over HIV drug resistance
18 November 2005
A multi-agency research team led by Dr Deenan Pillay, Head of the UCL Centre for Virology, Department of Infection has found that those becoming infected with HIV in the UK have one of the highest resistance rates to drugs in the world.
UCL worked with the Health Protection Agency and the Medical Research Council, together with multiple HIV clinics to coordinate a national surveillance study for HIV drug resistance among 2,357 patients with the virus who had never received antiretroviral therapy before being tested. The researchers studied the findings from centres that had done a minimum of 10 resistance tests over a study period after February 1996 until May 2003.
They found 335 patients whose viruses had mutations that gave resistance to one or more antiretroviral drugs. Most of these viruses, from 257 patients, were resistant to drugs with one drug class only, 44 cases showed resistance to drugs within two drug classes and 34 showed resistance to drugs within all three commonly used drug classes. The study concluded that patients becoming infected with HIV in the UK have one of the highest transmitted drug resistant rates documented to date.
Dr Pillay said: "Overall, there was a 14 per cent rate of resistance, which is higher than the 7 per cent estimate for the USA, 6 per cent in France and 10 per cent elsewhere in Europe. However, we need to add caution to these comparisons as different studies have utilised different definitions of resistance. Nevertheless, this spread of resistance may begin to compromise the enormous benefits conferred by combination antiretroviral therapy."
He added: "This research enables us to understand more about drug resistance and this will provide valuable insights into the population spread of drug resistant HIV. It also enforces the importance of needing to get diagnosed quickly if someone suspects that they have HIV. Since transmitted drug resistant viruses have derived from individuals receiving therapy (and therefore knowing they are infected), these results underline the importance of health education messages on safe sexual practices. It remains the case that early diagnosis of HIV must be encouraged to allow optimal clinical management of such patients, and to allow counselling on limiting the further spread of the virus."
Follow us
