African HIV Quick to Resist Drugs, Study Says

African strains of the AIDS virus may have mutations that help them develop resistance to drugs more quickly, according to a report in the journal Biochemistry.

The report may help explain why drugs stop working effectively in African HIV patients, the researchers said.

If so, new drugs must be developed urgently, said Ernesto Freire, the biology professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who led the study.

Of the 40-million-plus people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, 70% live in Africa.

The human immunodeficiency virus has evolved into several variants, called HIV-A through HIV-H, with HIV-A and HIV-C the most common in Africa.

The HIV drugs used in cocktail form to control the virus were mostly developed and tested against HIV-B, found commonly in the U.S. and Western Europe.