Prevalence of antiretroviral drug resistance among treatment-naive and treated HIV-infected patients in Venezuela

• Main Authors: Héctor Rafael Rangel, Domingo José Garzaro, Jaime Rafael Torres, Julio Castro, Jose Antonio Suarez, Laura Naranjo, John Ossenkopp, Nahír Martinez, Cristina Gutierrez, Flor Helene Pujol
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Ministério da Saúde 2009-05-01
• Series: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.
• Subjects: HIV; genotypic resistance; diagnostic; Venezuela
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02762009000300020
• ISSN: 0074-0276; 1678-8060

An in-house, low-cost method was developed to determine the genotypic resistance of immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) isolates. All 179 Venezuelan isolates analysed belonged to subtype B. Primary drug resistance mutations were found in 11% of 63 treatment-naïve patients. The prevalence of resistance in isolates from 116 HIV-positive patients under antiretroviral treatment was 47% to protease inhibitors, 65% to nucleoside inhibitors and 38% to non-nucleoside inhibitors, respectively. Around 50% of patients in the study harboured viruses with highly reduced susceptibility to the three classical types of drugs after only five years from their initial diagnoses.