I understand you're new here, Dr. Daar. But what makes one a good doctor is the ability to listen to your patient's questions and respond with the original question in mind. All too often, I see doctors use their patients' questions as an opportunity to demonstrate a vast knowledge of medicine.

Someone wrote to you asking whether or not you believe someone with group o hiv infection would respond well to traditional hiv therapy available today. Rather than answering this simple question, you chose to offer reassurance that the man's symptoms weren't specific to hiv. But that wasn't what he asked you. I think you owe it to him, and to the rest of the visitors at this site to answer the question.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for this posting and pointing out that I did indeed not address the specific question asked. Since group O virus is fairly rare and the clinical syndrome discussed was so nonspecific I did focus on the fact that this person most likely does not have HIV and should not ignore other potential diagnoses. These are specific and important issues for this patient to consider since he is unlikely to need to consider treatment for Group O virus.

With regards to the treatment of Group O virus. Since most Group O HIV-1 is from central and western Africa there is not a great deal of experience treating these individuals. However, there is data from the laboratory and some limited clinical experience that has shown that these strains are susceptible to the NRTIs, protease inhibitors and T-20. However, many are resistant to NNRTIs (such as efavirenz or nevirapine), a situation that is very similar to HIV-2.

Sorry I missed this the first time and I hope this satisfactorily answers the question.

Best, Eric