Varied Patterns of HIV-1 Drug Resistance on Failing First-Line Antiretroviral Therapy in South Africa

Abstract

HIV-1 drug resistance patterns varied broadly after failure of first-line therapy, ranging from no known resistance mutations (17%) to multinucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor and NNRTI resistance (23%). NNRTI mutation profiles differed for patients on EFV- compared with NVP-containing regimens. Overall, these findings suggest that HIV-1 drug resistance testing would be useful in identifying most appropriate second-line regimens.