Reuters reported that strains of the virus that resist one or more drugs from the very start are spreading. That means that the minute some people get infected, there will be some drugs that are probably a waste of time. Doctors attending the Sixth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Chicago were debating this even as they grappled with the frightening prospect of a "super" HIV virus that resists all known drugs. No one has found one of these yet. But the trend is clear.
What is worse is that it is becoming clear that people are passing on these resistant forms of the virus. Based on studies presented at the conference, 5 to 15 percent of all HIV patients have strains that are resistant to the newest class of drugs, the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), according to Dr. John Mellors of the University of Pittsburgh.