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Issue 29 - November 2007
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Welcome to the readers of  ,
the monthly newsletter from the MSD Interpharma HIV Team.
Whereas Biological Retrovirology is taken for granted in Northern countries, it still shuffles along in many developing countries due to a significant lack of qualified staff and financial resources. Its embryonic status will however change in the very near future due to the rapid expansion of immune system and resistance monitoring, two essential components of treating people living with HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. The growing need to upgrade diagnostic technologies necessary to handle these issues locally will also speed up the process.
Already, the expansion of Voluntary Counselling and Testing programs has saved thousands of lives in developing countries through the early detection of the HIV infection in people who had no idea they were infected.
At the same time, triple therapies have been the "life sentence" of thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS, bringing them hope for more than a decade now, and yet, a worrying phenomenon has been noticed since their introduction: the growing resistance of HIV to antiretroviral drugs, inevitably leading to failure, whether it is clinical, immunological or therapeutic.
Failure is often due to high viral load, low CD4 count, advanced disease and co-morbidities, drug interactions or to the insufficient power of a drug combination of a specific regimen. More often, it relates to poor adherence to the treatment due to intolerable side effects. In all cases the analysis of test results is the cornerstone to adequate management of the patient.
From the confirmation of a disease to the set up of a patient's resistance profile, the retrovirological biologist's playground is vast and adventurous.
In fifteen questions, HIV@MSD will update you on an initiative in the field of Biological Retrovirology that has been taking place in Dakar over the last two years. Its coordinators, Prof. Souleymane Mboup, Department of Bacteriology and Virology at Le Dantec University Hospital, Dakar, Senegal, and Prof. Laurent Belec, Virology Unit at Georges Pompidou Hospital, Paris, France, share with us their hopes and challenges in this research area. To know more click here...
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Lettre d'information HIV@MSD en français