Drug-resistant HIV strains turning up in China
By Tan Ee Lyn
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Drug-resistant HIV strains are turning up in parts of China as the virus stretches beyond high-risk groups and gains a stronger foothold in the general population, a leading Chinese AIDS researcher said.
Chen Zhiwei, director of the AIDS Institute in Hong Kong, described the trends as “alarming” and warned that Chinese AIDS patients could get in trouble because there were very few HIV drugs available in China.
“All these drug-resistant mutations are in China now, they are emerging in Chinese patients. The major worry is whether the drug-resistant virus (strains) will spread,” Chen said.
“We are studying whether that is happening, but that will be the case if you don’t provide proper treatment,” he told Reuters.
“If drug resistant virus (strains) spread in China, we don’t have enough selection of (drugs) that are made available,” Chen said, adding that researchers had urged China to import more varieties of HIV drugs.
China has only seven of the more than 20 different HIV drugs available, which means patients end up with limited options once they develop resistance to certain drugs.
Although HIV infection is incurable, cocktails of the drugs can control the virus. But drug adherence is bad in China’s rural regions due to poor patient knowledge, inaccessible healthcare and a lack of health workers to explain to patients the importance of keeping to drug regimens.
Chen’s warning comes after he and his colleagues published an article in Nature last week, detailing how HIV infections were rising sharply among women and gay and bisexual men in China. Continued…
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Related Posts:
BEIJING (Reuters) - China will provide two imported HIV drugs to patients who develop resistance to cheaper, domestic alternatives, state media said on Monday, going some way to meeting a key demand of AIDS treatment activists. The decision to hand out the new drugs means that nine of 20 drugs to combat AIDS are now available
Full Post: China rolls out two HIV drugs to tackle resistance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Tan Ee Lyn HONG KONG (Reuters) - Up to a third of gay and bisexual men in Hong Kong may be infected with HIV by 2020 if prevention programs to reduce new infections and promote safe sex fail to work, experts warned. HIV is primarily passed from person to person in Hong Kong through sex. The
Full Post: HIV infections up sharply among Hong Kong gay men
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BEIJING (Reuters) - Women must be more involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS, a disease increasingly being spread through sex, and men must also be encouraged to respect women more, a senior U.N. official said Friday. Nafis Sadik, U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region, told a poverty alleviation conference in Beijing that lack
Full Post: Women need empowerment in fight against AIDS: U.N.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BEIJING (Reuters) - The number of gay men in China who are HIV positive has risen sharply in the last three years, according to a survey of Chinese cities conducted by the Ministry of Health. Men with HIV make up 4.9 percent of the gay population, up from 0.4 percent in 2005, the Xinhua news agency
Full Post: China sees sharp rise in HIV-positive gay men
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Lucy Hornby BEIJING (Reuters) - The new face of AIDS in China is a shy man with a heavy provincial accent, a weathered face and the rough hands of a manual worker. Zhang Xiaohu, a character in an educational film for migrant workers, is part of a trend that worries Chinese officials: the potential for AIDS
Full Post: China’s migrants are a new front in AIDS fight