Antiretroviral (ARV) Drug Resistance and HIV-1 Subtypes among Injecting Drug Users in the Coastal Region of Kenya

HIV-1 genetic diversity results into the development of widespread drug-resistant mutations (DRMs) for the first-line retroviral therapy. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated the relationship between DRMs and HIV-1 subtypes among HIV-positive injecting drug users (IDUs). This study therefore determined the association between HIV-1 genotypes and DRMs among the 200 IDUs. Stanford HIV Drug Resistance Database was used to interpret DRMs. The five HIV-1 genotypes circulating among the IDUs were A(1) (25 (53.2%)), A(2) (2 (4.3%)), B (2 (4.3%)), C (9 (19.1%)), and D (9 (19.1%)). The proportions of DRMs were A(1) (12 (52.2%)), A(2) (1 (4.3%)), B (0 (0.0%)), C (5 (21.7%)), and D (5 (21.7%)). Due to the large proportion of drug resistance across all HIV-1 subtypes, surveillance and behavioral studies need to be explored as IDUs may be spreading the drug resistance to the general population. In addition, further characterization of DRMs including all the relevant clinical parameters among the larger population of IDUs is critical for effective drug resistance surveillance.