Background: In Africa a high percentage of HIV-infected children continue to experience HIV treatment failure despite enormous progress. In Benin (West Africa), there are currently no data on HIV drug resistance at failure in paediatric populations.
Objectives: To assess the frequency and patterns of HIV drug resistance among children with virological ART failures.
Methods: Dried blood spots from 62 HIV-infected children with virological failure were collected at the paediatric clinic of the National Hospital Center in Cotonou for genotyping and plasma drug concentration determination.
Results: Characteristics of the population show a median age of 10 years (IQR 6-13) and a median duration on ART of 5 years (IQR 3-7). Viruses from 53 children were successfully amplified. Of these, 76% of patients were on an NNRTI-based regimen and 24% on a boosted PI-based regimen. NRTI, NNRTI and dual-class resistance was present in 71%, 84% and 65% of cases, respectively. Only 4% of the children had major resistance mutations to PIs and none had major resistance mutations to integrase inhibitors. Among the participants, 25% had undetectable antiretroviral concentrations.
Conclusions: Our results showed that the development of drug resistance could be one of the main consequences of high and continuous viral replication in HIV-infected children in Benin. Thus, inadequate attention to monitoring lifelong ART in children may prevent achievement of the goal of the United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) of 90% viral suppression among patients receiving ART.