The prevalence of antiretroviral resistance among persons enrolled in the centralized HIV/AIDS Drug Treatment Program in British Columbia, Canada, who had died between July 1997 and December 2001, was investigated, to determine the degree to which antiretroviral resistance contributed to mortality.
During this period, 637 deaths had occurred. The last plasma sample obtained during therapy was genotyped retrospectively for treated individuals who had died of a nonaccidental cause. Samples with plasma human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) loads /=1, >/=2, or 3 drug classes was observed in 76%, 42%, and 11% of individuals, respectively, in the group of 1220 living individuals experiencing virologic therapy failure, compared with only 44%, 23%, and 5% of individuals, respectively, who had died (P