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The Success Of HIV Treatment Is Increasing The Risk Of Drug-Resistance

The Success Of HIV Treatment Is Increasing The Risk Of Drug-Resistance

Huffington Post - "Global health agencies are succeeding in getting more people with HIV on antiretroviral therapy, a combination of drugs that suppress the virus to undetectable levels in the blood and reduce the risk of transmission to another person.

But scientists are beginning to detect a disturbing new trend: The rise of drug-resistant HIV strains, especially in countries such as Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania and South Africa.

Like tuberculosis and other diseases, drug resistant HIV strains emerge in part because a person doesn’t take the proper dose of drugs at the right time every day. In poor regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, this is more likely to happen, not because of a lack of will on the part of the patient, but because there are so few health clinics, or political and economic instability could make it exceedingly difficult to access life-saving treatment on time.

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