Resistant Strains of HIV
You are coughing, sneezing, have a runny nose and your body aches. Most of us have had the flu and know exactly the symptoms I am speaking of. Well, what if you went to your doctor and were treated with antibiotics and such, but just didn't get well. Would you think twice about it? Would you wonder what was wrong with you? Or would you blow it off as a bad flu season? Stephen Marcus, a 25 year old male from Los Angeles, blew it off. He didn't think twice about it. Didn't really know any better. Stephen wasn't suffering from the flu, though. After three months of this "cold," as he called it, Stephen was finally diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. This isn't the worst of Stephen's story, though. After following the highly complex triple-therapy drug regimen, otherwise know as a "cocktail" for six months, Stephen's condition was not improving. He returned to his doctor only to find out that he had been exposed to a virus that was resistant to the now traditional drug cocktail therapy. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, March 14, 2001, approximately 14% of newly infected people are infected by a strain of the virus that is already resistant to one or more of the antiretroviral drugs.
There are several ways resistant strains of HIV can form. Because the virus reproduces so rapidly mistakes, called mutations, are common. Most of these mutations during replication cause the virus particle to become so weak that it can't reproduce. Those mutated strains do not pose any harm. Other mutations, though, can make a virus particle resistant to one or more of the drugs. While the drug continues to work against regular HIV, the mutant HIV reproduces without restraint. According to the Chicago Sun Times, February 8, 2001, in as little as a few days, the resistant HIV can become the dominant strain, thus severely restricting the affects of the treatment. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, better know as the CDC, has launched a new program to counter the threat of a possible AIDS resurgence. With the HIV virus rapidly mutating and creating strains that defy some drugs, it is very important for carriers of the virus to be identified and educated to keep them from passing it on. The new campaign, called "Know Now," will be aimed at identifying the estimated 900,000 Americans who have HIV, as reported by Business Week, February 19, 2001. The CDC claims that of these 900,000 Americans who are HIV positive, as many as 250,000 do not know it. The new effort is designed to reduce that proportion by encouraging high-risk people who do not know their status to be tested. The prevalence of these resistant strains has quadrupled in just six years, as reported by the Mi
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Approximate Word count = 1004
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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