By: Dr. Geoffrey Modest
I have a patient with HIV-2 infection on darunavir/ritonavir plus truvada (tenof, FTC), who had a sharp increase in CD4 from 180 to 350 after starting meds, stable at 300-350 range for the past couple of years, then (when I was finally able to check an HIV-2 viral load, which was a send-out to Washington University) was found to have a viral load of 3000. After speaking with folks in San Francisco (the HIV consultation line, also called the warm-line), they suggested getting in contact with Dr. Geoffrey Gottlieb at Washington University. He has an experimental assay for checking HIV-2 resistance, and when I emailed him, he responded immediately that he would get the most recent viral load sample from the lab there, sent last week, and do resistance testing. So, thought I would pass that on. He wrote the up-to-date chapter on HIV2 treatment. Also see a really good review of HIV-2 therapy (doi:10.1016/j.antiviral.2013.12.001).