Long-term persistence of transmitted HIV drug resistance in male genital tract secretions: implications for secondary transmission.

Background: Transmitted drug-resistant HIV slowly reverts in the blood to drug-sensitive virus. The environment of the male genital tract (MGT) may result in even slower rates of reversion to drug susceptibility.

Methods: We measured the decay of resistance in longitudinally collected blood and semen samples from 5 individuals newly infected with HIV containing resistance mutations to nonnucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs).