http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/02/021505calHIV.htm
(San Diego, California) Health officials say that a rare strain of HIV that is resistant to most AIDS treatments may have struck the west coast.
In a hastily arranged news conference late Monday afternoon, San Diego County public health officer Nancy Bowen said that the strain may have infected a San Diego man.
"[His] HIV has a similar molecular makeup as the patient in New York City," Bowen told reporters.
The man tested positive for the rare HIV strain last fall, Bowen said, after his health provider sent a blood sample to ViroLogic, an HIV typing reference laboratory in Northern California.
Bowen said that even though the strain resists treatment health authorities in the county were not alarmed until last week when New York City's health department released details about a similar case. (story)
After the New York disclosure health departments across the country began to check for similarities.
On Sunday NYC officials said that two more possible cases are being investigated.
In Boston, on Monday, health officials said they are several similar cases over the past few years. (story)
But, it still is not known if all of these cases are linked, indicating a new virulent strain of HIV is spreading across the country. Tests to determine that are underway and it could take a week or more for the results to be known.
In the meantime, Bowen urged calm.
"I don't think it will do anybody any good to get panicked about this," she said.
The New York patient who sparked the nationwide alert is described as a male in his mid-40s who reported multiple male sex partners and unprotected anal intercourse, often while using crystal meth.
Health authorities are trying to track down those partners.
But, in San Diego, Bowen said that the identity of the suspected case there is not known. The reference lab is trying to find his doctor but if the man were tested anonymously, where a code rather than a name is used, it may be impossible to find him Bowen said.
Meanwhile, health officials in Trinidad believe that a man with HIV in Port-of-Spain is also infected with the suspected super strain.
While drug resistance is increasingly common among patients who have been treated for HIV, cases of 3-DCR HIV in newly-diagnosed, previously untreated patients are extremely rare.
This strain also causes a rapid onset of AIDS. Usually full blown AIDS occurs more than ten years after initial infection with HIV. In the original New York patient's case, the onset of AIDS appears to have occurred within two to three months.
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