OBJECTIVETo explore the reconstitution of immune function and viral suppression condition and to analyze the occurrence of drug resistance HIV-1 variants and its prevalence after using HAART in Guangxi Autonomy Region.

METHODSFrom July 2004 to October 2005, 133 HIV infected individuals who had received HAART for more than three months were recruited, and 58 infected persons with no antiviral therapy were selected as controls. Questionnaire was used to collect information about the adherence of HAART therapy. Immune reconstruction and viral suppress conditions were obtained by CD4+ counts and viral load and RT-PCR were used to amplify the PR and RT regions of HIV-1 genome while HIV-1 drug resistance rates were analyzed to show the occurrence and prevalence in both treated and naive patients.

RESULTSIn terms of CD4+ T cell counts: 70.69% of the treated patients showed obvious increase and 23.28% had no apparent change but 6.03% of them went down. 70.48% of the patients who had received antiviral therapy more than 3 months had their viral load lower than the low detectable limitation. When comparing the log of viral load between treated and untreated cohort, the mean value of the treated was obviously less than the untreated (P < 0.05). However,the result of drug resistance showed no obvious difference between the treated and untreated groups.

CONCLUSIONThe antiviral therapy being used in Guangxi region, had achieved obvious effect on the reconstruction of immune system and the suppression of viral replication in vivo under good adherence while the occurrence of drug-resistant HIV strain did not show obvious difference between treated and naive patient groups.