This is the worst news we've had on HIV in a long while:
On Friday, New York City health officials issued this chilling announcement: A man is infected with a form of the AIDS virus that is not only resistant to three of the four classes of anti-HIV drugs, it is apparently so virulent that it causes full-blown AIDS in a matter of weeks rather than the usual decade or more. It will be super-difficult to treat, and it may be a super-fast killer.
New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden first heard of the case on Jan. 22. Tests showed that the man had been infected for only a short time.
Frieden prudently had samples of the mysterious virus assessed by two independent labs. Both labs confirmed that it is resistant to all three of the classes of pill-form HIV drugs and that it attacks its victims with what are called CX4 cellular receptors, which are typically found only in those infected with HIV for a long time and in advanced stages of AIDS.
There is more bad news. The man is the victim of another U.S. epidemic â methamphetamine use. While high and uninhibited, he had sex with more than 100 men over the last two years, often without using a condom. And he recalls little about those encounters â certainly not the partners' names and addresses. There is little hope of tracing the virus, of studying the strain's transmission, of warning the victim's partners or stopping them from having more unprotected sex.
Read the whole thing.
