Health officials still studying mysterious strain of drug-resistant AIDS

• Several patients have been identified with HIV that might be related to a multi-drug-class resistant strain that appears to have rapidly progressed to AIDS in a New York City man, health officials revealed in an update on the case.
• The source of the New York City man's infection is still unknown and remains under investigation, the department says.
• Although the patient's strain of HIV is highly drug resistant, he reportedly is responding to treatment that includes the two drugs to which his strain appears to be susceptible, as well as other drugs that may be effective.
• Obtaining blood samples for resistance testing, and testing of these samples to determine the genetic relatedness of strains is continuing and may take weeks to months to complete.
• The Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center recently presented findings from a study of a group of men who have sex with men who were tested for HIV between 1999 and 2004, which indicated that more than one quarter of those with recent infection have resistance to one or more drugs.
• In summary, there is good news and bad news, and there are many things that we still don't know, say New York health officials.
• To date, no other patients have been identified with the same strain Through efforts of the Health Department, physicians, laboratories and others, there is now a monitoring system in place to identify similar cases if they occur.
• Investigation of the social network surrounding this case indicates that unsafe, anonymous sex along with the use of drugs, including crystal methamphetamine, remains common.
• People with acute HIV can be very infectious because they are not aware that they are positive and the viral load (amount of HIV in the blood and body fluids) can be very high during acute retroviral syndrome.