The threat that an entirely new AIDS epidemic might ravage the country sent shock waves through the medical community yesterday.
The discovery of a virulent new strain of HIV that is resistant to three of the four types of drugs used to fight the virus means that all the recent advances in treatment may go from cutting edge to obsolete overnight, experts feared.
"This is just scary. This just throws out the medicine chest," said Dr. Charles Gonzalez, an AIDS specialist at NYU Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital.
"In the beginning of the AIDS crisis, we had no treatment. Again, we have absolutely no treatment," said Gonzalez, a member of a network that monitors new AIDS cases in New York. "Everything we're using now to treat this guy is jury-rigged."
Drug-resistant HIV isn't new. But what makes this new bug unique is that it is resistant to 19 of the 20 drugs now on the market.
"This may be the tip of the iceberg. It's going to get ugly," Gonzalez said. "If this one starts getting around, we're back to the early '80s."
