HIV drug resistance following a decade of the free antiretroviral therapy programme in India: A review

Objective: The objective of this review was to assess the burden of HIV drug resistance mutations (DRM) in Indian adults exposed to first-line antiretroviral therapy (ART) as per national guidelines.

Methods: An advanced search of the published literature on HIV drug resistance in India was performed in the PubMed and Scopus databases. Data pertaining to age, sex, CD4 count, viral load, and prevalence of nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI)/non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) DRM were extracted from each publication. Year-wise Indian HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) sequences were retrieved from the Los Alamos HIV database and mutation analyses were performed. A time trend analysis of the proportion of sequences showing NRTI resistance mutations among individuals exposed to first-line ART was conducted.

Results: Overall, 23 studies (1046 unique RT sequences) were identified indicating a prevalence of drug resistance to NRTI and NNRTI. The proportion of RT sequences with any DRM, any NRTI DRM, and any NNRTI DRM was 78.39%, 68.83%, and 73.13%, respectively. The temporal trend analysis of individual DRM from sequences retrieved during 2004-2014 indicated a rising trend in K65R mutations (p=0.013).

Conclusions: Although the overall burden of resistance against first-line ART agents remained steady over the study decade, periodic monitoring is essential. There is the need to develop an HIV-1 subtype C-specific resistance database in India.