Profile of drug resistance mutations to first-line ART and genetic diversity at Donka national hospital in Guinea (Conakry).
This was a cross-sectional regional study which enrolled participants at four health facilities in three neighboring countries of west Africa: Senegal, Guinea, and Mauritania. The three countries are situated in the western coast of Africa  where they all border the North Atlantic Ocean in the West. Selected health facilities for the recruitment of study participants included the ATC of Donka national hospital in Conakry (Guinea). Adult patients aged =18 years old, with HIV-1 or HIV-1/-2 infection were eligible if they were under first-line ART for a minimum duration of 12 months. This study was placed under the general coordination of the reference LBV-HALD, Dakar, Senegal. The study protocol received ethical and scientific approvals from the Senegal National Ethics  Committee for Health Research (nº 0278/MSAS/DPRS/CNERS). All patients were offered viral load testing and viral samples were isolated from DBS for resistance genotyping and genetic diversity analyses. A bioinformatic pipeline was developed for sequences base-calling, quality control, phylogenetic and recombination analyses. In all 25 samples were successfully genotyped out of the 36 virologically failing patients.