Scroll To Top
Health

Official says 10%
of new HIV cases are drug-resistant

Official says 10%
of new HIV cases are drug-resistant

One in 10 new HIV infections is resistant to at least one anti-HIV drug.

Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill AIDS Center at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, says that about 10% of all new HIV cases reported in the world are already resistant to at least one antiretroviral drug at the time of infection, the Mail & Guardian reports. Wainberg, speaking at the Microbicides 2006 Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, says that the high number of drug-resistant cases is due to HIV's ability to easily mutate to develop defenses against antiretroviral medications. An HIV-positive person who carries drug-resistant HIV can pass that drug-resistant virus along to others, he says. Infection with drug-resistant HIV limits treatment options. Virus that is multidrug-resistant can be much more difficult to treat than HIV that is susceptible to all of the available anti-HIV drugs, HIV treatment experts say. (The Advocate)

Advocate Channel - The Pride StoreOut / Advocate Magazine - Fellow Travelers & Jamie Lee Curtis

From our Sponsors

Most Popular

Latest Stories

Outtraveler Staff