Drug Resistance & HIV
- Sina Amadi
- Jun 22
- 2 min read
Introduction
When HIV multiplies in the body, it sometimes alters it's form, which is known as a mutation, and some HIV mutations may result in resistance to HIV medicines (known as HIV Drug resistance) which indicates that the virus will be resistant to some or all parts of the prescribed HIV medicine (National Institutes of Health [NIH], 2025, What is HIV Drug Resistance?). Furthermore as time passes, drug resistance can develop in people with HIV or it can be spread from person to person (known as: transmitted resistance), such as perinatal transmission during pregnancy, therefore some individuals will have drug resistance HIV even prior to them taking HIV Medicines (NIH, 2025, What is HIV Drug Resistance?).
Prevalence
A study did an analysis and looked at 50,747 people during the period of 2014- 2018 diagnosed with HIV who had a drug resistance test performed less than three months after their diagnosis and reported to the National HIV Surveillance System, and who had resided in one of the 28 states where greater than 20% of HIV diagnosis had a sequence that met the inclusion criteria of the study (McClung et al., 2022, Methods).
The study's findings showed that the overall transmitted drug resistance associated mutation prevalence was 18.9% and it's also the the highest prevalence reported to date in a large US Study (McClung et al., 2022, Results).
Strategies
By taking the HIV medicines as specifically prescribed (known as medication adherence) lowers the risk of drug resistance, prior to starting treatment telling their health care providers about issues that can make medication adherence difficult, and health care providers can assist to find a appropriate treatment regime which rises the probability of medication adherence and lowers the risk of drug treatment (NIH, 2025, How can a person taking HIV medicines reduce the risk of drug resistance?). Lastly, for individuals who are actively participating in sexual activity, the possibility of transmitted drug resistance can be substantially reduced if their partners take pre-exposure prophylaxis (also known as PrEP) (NIH, 2025, How can a person taking HIV medicines reduce the risk of drug resistance?).
References
McClung RP, Oster AM, Ocfemia MCB, Saduvala N, Heneine W, Johnson JA, Hernandez AL. Transmitted Drug
Resistance Among Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-1 Diagnoses in the United States, 2014-2018. Clin Infect Dis. 2022 Mar 23;74(6):1055-1062. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciab583. PMID: 34175948; PMCID: PMC9630858.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (2024). [Image of HIV Virus artwork featuring 3D prints of HIV virus
particles]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/a-group-of-blue-and-red-balls-on-a-black-surface-7jUtGj6sMy0
National Institutes of Health. (2025, March 31). Drug Resistance. https://hivinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv/fact-
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