New HIV Strain Update

Efforts to slow pandemic could be crippled by new wave of drug-resistant HIV strains.

According to Time (1/14, Harrell), "Last January, a team of scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) published a study in...The Lancet making the audacious claim that the tools already exist to end the AIDS epidemic." Based on their "mathematical models, the researchers claimed that universal HIV testing followed by the immediate treatment of newly infected patients with antiretroviral drugs could eliminate the disease from even the most heavily infected populations within 10 years." They may not have accounted for drug resistance, however.
Already, "mutant strains are...starting to spread in poorer nations, such as South Africa, where there is little access to back-up medicines when resistance develops," Bloomberg News (1/15, Bennett) reports. What's more, "strains of mutant HIV emerging in the US and Europe threaten to undermine progress made in expanding access," according to a paper in published online Jan. 14 in Science and written by researchers from the University of California-Los Angeles, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Ottawa who constructed a new mathematical model.
The model "tracks the transmission of multiple strains of HIV," HealthDay (1/14, Preidt) reported. It shows "that many drug-resistant strains of HIV that have evolved over the past 10 years in San Francisco are much more easily transmitted from person to person than previously believed and are likely to cause a new wave of drug resistance in coming years." In fact, "strains of drug-resistant HIV that will emerge in San Francisco within the next five years could pose a serious threat to efforts to control the HIV pandemic."
At present, "about 60% of the resistant HIV strains now circulating in San Francisco are capable of starting their own mini-epidemics," MedPage Today (1/14, Smith) reported. The new model also "suggests that some resistant strains are now being transmitted among people who have never been treated." Lead investigator Sally Blower, PhD, said, "Essentially, it's like the beginning of the HIV epidemic all over again."