Source: The Daily Nation
By EUNICE KILONZO
22nd Mar 2017
At least one in 10 people in Homa Bay County who is HIV-positive has an HIV strain that is resistant to at least one of the available antiretrovirals, even when he or she has never been put on any HIV/Aids treatment.
This means they were infected by strains or types of HIV that are resistant to at least one of the available antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. The consequence of these changes in the virus is ARV treatment failure and, hence, further spread of drug-resistant HIV.
The findings are in a study published in the research journal PloS One on February 8, 2017.
This transmitted drug-resistant (TDR) HIV is passed on in the same ways as ‘normal HIV’, such as having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner who has TDR, sharing contaminated needles or blades, from a mother with TDR to her child, or through transfusion with infected blood.