Are Viral Blips in HIV-1-Infected Patients Clinically Relevant?

Abstract

HIV infection has a disturbing feature, after being treated by administration of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), plasma viral load decays below the detection threshold of standard clinical assays (50 copies RNA/mL) but appears to fail to completely eradicate the infection, a residual viral load (detectable only by supersensitive assays) persists in plasma. An evidence that the virus is not completely suppressed is the observation of the so-called vira blips, transient episodes of viremia where the viral load raises above the standard test detection limit for a brief period of time. The origin and clinical relevance of these blips remains unclear. There are several studies that have compiled evidence against viral blips being correlated with virological failure.