[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Doctors discover new HIV strain
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <"Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@freelists.org>
- Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 01:34:38 +0100
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Doctors discover new HIV strain
By Marc Santora and Lawrence K. Altman The New York Times Saturday, February
12, 2005
Virus is resistant to nearly all drugs
A previously unknown strain of HIV that is highly resistant to virtually all
known drugs and appears to lead to the rapid onset of AIDS was detected in a
man last week, New York health officials said Friday.
.
While the extent of the spread of the disease is unknown, officials said the
situation was alarming.
.
"We consider this a major potential problem," said Dr. Thomas Frieden,
commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The
department issued an alert to all hospitals and doctors in the city to be on
the lookout for the new strain.
.
The virus was found in a New York City man in his mid-40s who engaged in
unprotected anal sex with other men on multiple occasions while he was using
crystal methamphetamine.
.
While HIV strains that are resistant to some drug treatments have been on the
rise in recent years throughout the United States, city officials said this
case was unique and worrisome for several reasons.
.
First, they said, the strain of the disease was resistant to three of the four
classes of drugs used to treat HIV from the moment the patient got sick.
Typically, drug resistance comes after a patient is treated with retroviral
drugs, often because they go off the prescribed course. And, more often than
not, a person is only resistant to one or two classes of drugs.
.
But the resistance comes in combination with its rapid transformation into
AIDS. Each of those things has been seen before, but never together.
.
In this case, the patient developed AIDS from 2 to 10 months after being
infected. Usually, it takes 10 years for the average person infected with HIV
to develop AIDS.
.
At a news conference at New York's health department, where Frieden was joined
by nearly a dozen doctors and community leaders, several people recalled having
that same worried feeling they had more than two decades ago, when AIDS first
started appearing.
.
The city has been in close contact with the Centers for Disease Control in
Atlanta.
.
More tests need to be completed before it is clear if any combination of drugs
can work on this strain of the virus. But given what they know now, Frieden
said treatment would be extremely difficult.
.
From the moment the health department learned about this case a week ago, they
have been studying complex laboratory tests to figure out what exactly they had
on their hands as well as trying to figure out the man's sexual history.
.
Health officials would not go into detail about how many people the man may
have had sex with, but they have several investigators trying to track down
partners. The man took an HIV test in May 2003 and was negative, health
officials said. Investigators believe he contracted HIV in October of 2004,
when he engaged in unprotected anal sex with multiple partners while using
crystal methamphetamine. The man found some of his partners on the Internet,
officials said.
.
Frieden said that the most likely scenario was that the man had sex with
someone who had AIDS and had already developed a resistance to drugs. "Whoever
gave it to him most likely did not have sex only with him," Frieden said.
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