Last January a team of scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) published a study in the British medical journal the Lancet making the audacious claim that the tools already exist to end the AIDS epidemic. Doctors have long noted that antiretrovirals — the drugs commonly used to treat HIV — are so successful at suppressing the number of viruses in an infected patient’s blood that they can render a person no longer contagious.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit
Using 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.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit
But a new study in the journal Science suggests that such thinking is too good to be true. And the problem is drug resistance. Extensive antiretroviral treatment can result in the development and transmission of drug-resistant strains of HIV — something the Lancet study did not consider. In the new study, published on Thursday.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit
a team of scientists from the University of California, the University of Tennessee and the University of Ottawa analyzed data from San Francisco, where antiretroviral drugs have been extensively prescribed to HIV patients since AZT was introduced in 1987. In that city, drug resistance has grown steadily and, according to the team’s models, drug-resistant infections are now on the verge of spiking.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit