3-DCR HIV Resistant to 19 FDA Approved Drugs
Recombinomics Commentary
February 13, 2005
>> He also said that even if a patient showed resistance to a specific class of drug, it did not necessarily mean that he or she would be resistant to every drug in the class.<<
Media reports have indicated that the HIV from the patient in New York was resistant to 19 of the 20 FDA approved drugs (3-DCR). Only enfuvirtide (Fuzeon) was effective. However, it is a synthetic peptide that binds to the first heptad repeat and blocks viral fusion with the cell membrane. It is designed to be taken with other HIV anti-virals, and use alone would likely lead to resistance.
However, the real issue is not the resistance. Other HIV isolates have shown to be resistant to reverse transcriptase and protease inhibitors.
The key issues are transmission and virulence. Contact tracing and sequencing may be able to quickly address the transmission issue. If there was transmission, then answers to the virulence questions may also soon follow.
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