Treatment-associated polymorphisms in protease are significantly associated with higher viral load and lower CD4 count in newly diagnosed drug-naive HIV-1 infected patients.

BACKGROUND:
The effect of drug resistance transmission on disease progression in the newly infected patient is not well understood. Major drug resistance mutations severely impair viral fitness in a drug free environment, and therefore are expected to revert quickly. Compensatory mutations, often already polymorphic in wild-type viruses, do not tend to revert after transmission.
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