loads. The 22 per cent diagnosed late were given triple anti-HIV therapy and recommended a caesarian, as were women whose viral loads were over 100,000.
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Resistant virus transmission 'still low' in UK
How many new HIV infections are of drug-resistant virus? Widely differing estimates continue to be reported. Dr Mike Brady of St Mary's Hospital, London, told the 8th British HIV Association Conference in York on 19-21 April that new HIV infections of resistant virus were still relatively uncommon. Of 50 patients picked up during primary HIV infection (in the first few months after infection) from November 1999 to the present, six (12 per cent) had at least one drug-resistance mutation in their HIV, but only two - four per cent - had more than one. The four patients with single mutations all achieved an undetectable viral load on treatment. Brady's study would appear to show that, at least at St Mary's Hospital, less than one in 20 new HIV infections are likely to be due to virus whose drug-resistance might make it difficult to treat, a third of the level estimated in some other studies.
HAART saves lives and cash
The cost of treating people with HIV is set to rise dramatically over
the next few years. A study by Dr Eddy Beck, from the Chelsea and Westminster
Hospital, estimates that the number of UK HIV patients medication will
increase to over
25,000 by 2004 and will cost the NHS over £500 million a year. But other
