Brief Report: Should Abacavir Be a First-Line Alternative for Adults With HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa?
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Published on: October 31, 2010
Guinevere Q Lee1, Suzanne McCluskey, Yap Boum
1*BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; †Department of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA; ‡Harvard University Center for AIDS Research, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; §Faculty of Medicine, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda; ‖HIV/AIDS division, University of California, San Francisco, CA; ¶Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco, CA; #School of Public Health, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR; and **Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD.
Abstract:
Despite a poor toxicity profile, zidovudine supersedes abacavir (ABC) as an alternative first-line agent in most international treatment guidelines because of concerns about HLA-B*57:01-related ABC-hypersensitivity. We detected one case of HLA-B*57:01 carriage among 513 HIV-infected individuals in Uganda, which, in combination with previous reports, supports the safety of ABC in the region.
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