Objectives: To determine the prevalence and trends of antiretroviral drug resistance among HIV-1-infected Taiwanese patients who have been provided with free-of-charge antiretroviral therapy (ART) since 1990.
Methods: Blood samples collected from 786 HIV-1-infected patients from 1999 to 2006 were subjected to genotypic resistance assay. Antiretroviral resistance mutations were identified in accordance with the antiretroviral resistance mutation list of the International AIDS Society-USA Consensus Guidelines. Trends of resistance were studied in patients enrolled in two periods: before (period 1, January 1999 to December 2003) and after (period 2, January 2004 to December 2006) the CRF07_BC outbreak among injection drug users (IDUs).
Results: The frequency of HIV-1 isolates harbouring one or more primary mutations associated with antiretroviral resistance to reverse transcriptase inhibitors or protease inhibitors increased significantly from 6.6% in period 1 to 12.7% in period 2 (P = 0.003). A significant increase in prevalence of antiretroviral drug resistance was observed among men who have sex with men and patients infected with HIV subtype B. In multivariate analysis, hepatitis C virus (HCV) exposure, which exhibited collinearity with injection drug use and infection with CRF07_BC, represented a lower risk for infection with resistant viruses.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the prevalence of antiretroviral resistance has increased in Taiwan over the past 8 years after the introduction of combination ART. IDUs who were HCV-seropositive and infected with CRF07_BC were at lower risk for infection with antiretroviral-resistant viruses.