Background: South Africa has the largest public antiretroviral therapy (ART) programme in the world. We assessed temporal trends in pretreatment HIV-1 drug resistance (PDR) in ART-naïve adults from South Africa.
Methods: We included datasets from studies conducted between 2000 and 2016, with HIV-1 pol sequences from more than ten ART-naïve adults. We analysed sequences for the presence of 101 drug resistance mutations. We pooled sequences by sampling year and performed a sequence-level analysis using a generalized linear mixed model, including the dataset as a random effect.
Findings: We identified 38 datasets, and retrieved 6880 HIV-1 pol sequences for analysis. The pooled annual prevalence of PDR remained below 5% until 2009, then increased to a peak of 11·9% (95% confidence interval (CI) 9·2-15·0) in 2015. The pooled annual prevalence of non-nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) PDR remained below 5% until 2011, then increased to 10.0% (95% CI 8.4-11.8) by 2014. Between 2000 and 2016, there was a 1.18-fold (95% CI 1.13-1.23) annual increase in NNRTI PDR (p < 0.001), and a 1.10-fold (95% CI 1.05-1.16) annual increase in nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor PDR (p = 0.001).
Interpretation: Increasing PDR in South Africa presents a threat to the efforts to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These findings support the recent decision to modify the standard first-line ART regimen, but also highlights the need for broader public health action to prevent the further emergence and transmission of drug-resistant HIV.
Source of funding: This research project was funded by the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) with funds from National Treasury under its Economic Competitiveness and Support Package.
Disclaimer: The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC.
Keywords: Antiretroviral therapy; HIV; Molecular epidemiology; Pooled sequence analysis; Pre-treatment drug resistance; South Africa; Surveillance.