Prevalence of drug resistant HIV in the UK on the rise

The number of people with UK who have drug resistant virus is growing, according to figures published by the Health Protection Agency last Friday.

The figures highlight an increase in the number of antiretroviral treatment naïve individuals infected with a strain of HIV that is already resistant to at least one drug, from 10% in 1996 to 14% in 2001 to a preliminary figure of 21% in 2002.

There has also been a substantial increase in the number of treatment-experienced patients who are resistant to the three main classes of anti-HIV drugs. In 1996 1% of HIV-positive individuals were resistant to NRTIs, protease inhibitors and NNRTIs. This had increased to 14% by 2001, remaining steady at 13% for 2002. However, data for 2002 are incomplete and the Health Protection Agency are cautioning that the figure is likely to increase as further reports come in.

Amongst patients failing therapy, resistance to one drug has remained steady at between 70% - 80% since 1996.

Dr Barry Evans of the Health Protection Agency warned that these figures might not tell the full story saying, “it is important to bear in mind when looking at these figures, that we are not able to test for drug resistance in all patients with HIV.?Indeed, the Health Protection Agency points out that resistance tests were performed on only 4% of the 19,000 people taking anti-HIV therapy in the UK last year. Of these, 21% had no resistance, 24% were resistant to one drug class, 43% to two drugs classes, and 13% to all the three main drug classes.

Increasing levels of drug resistance made it essential to continue the development of new classes of anti-HIV drugs, said Dr Evans. He added, “safer sex messages targeted at people living with HIV are essential in order to prevent onward transmission of drug-resistant strains of the virus to newly-infected individuals.?

Further information on this website

Resistance - factsheet

Booklet on resistance - in the award winning information for HIV-positive people series