U.S. study criticizes HIV tracking plan
Date: 17-01-2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team |
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LOS ALAMOS, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say a World Health Organization plan to track transmitted resistance to HIV drugs in Botswana might fail due to unrealistic goals.
UCLA researchers studied the WHO's Botswana antiretroviral program that aims to treat 85,000 patients by 2009 -- roughly 30 percent of all those infected in Botswana.
As greater numbers of people are treated, the likelihood a small percentage will develop strains of HIV resistant to antiretroviral drugs increases.
The WHO surveillance system is intended to detect transmitted resistance exceeding a 5 percent threshold by 2009.
Psychiatry and biobehavioral Professor Sally Blower and postdoctoral fellow Raffaele Vardavas say the 5 percent detection threshold is an arbitrary one primarily based on guesswork.
"They did not make any mathematical predictions on how long it would take to get to their threshold," Blower said. "Essentially, they've guessed what would happen. They should have done things on a more quantitative basis."
Blower and Vardavas developed a mathematical model that suggests drug resistance will occur, but likely at a much slower rate than WHO anticipates, and the organization would not be able to detect it.
The study appears in the current issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.
