Analysis of HIV-1 drug resistance in Gulf countries

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Introduction HIV/AIDS is a major health concern towards global population. The Arabian Peninsula consists of seven countries, as Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which is considered to be part of Middle East. According to the 2012 estimates for Middle East the estimated number of people acquiring HIV rose by more than 50%. The first AIDS case in a Saudi Arabian individual was reported in 1984 and since then, the number has been increasing. Patients are administered with antiretroviral therapy that reduces morbidity and mortality associated with HIV infection. Due to selective pressure from these antiretroviral drugs, the virus develops mutations for this purpose and up to date data regarding the prevalence of drug resistance mutations is required. Objective To determine HIV drug resistance in GCC countries using bioinformatics tools. Materials and method Available pol sequences of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen were retrieved from Los Alamos database and entered into Stanford HIV Database from which data for drug resistance and mutations were analyzed. Results 11% of the Saudi Arabian sequences showed low level resistance in virus. However 26% of prot sequences from Yemen showed minor mutations and 5% showed minor mutation for rt. 15% sequences for Kuwait prot region showed minor mutations and 14% in rt region showed minor mutation causing low to potentially low level resistance. Conclusion Majority of the sequences from the GCC countries showed minor mutations but no major mutation is seen against the virus. The data suggest that infection is new in the region, thus virus is still sensitive to most of the drugs.