STUDIES SHOW MORE RESISTANCE TO AIDS DRUG

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 1, 1993                   TAG: 9301010045
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: HOLIDAY   
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short
STUDIES SHOW MORE RESISTANCE TO AIDS DRUG
More AIDS patients are showing early resistance to AZT, the drug most commonly used against the disease.
Dr. Wendell T. W. Ching of the UCLA School of Medicine, said blood tests are turning up increasing numbers of AIDS-infected patients who have never taken AZT and are sick with a virus that is naturally resistant to the drug.
"Some of the patients may have gotten the virus from other patients who had been taking AZT and who are now transmitting the resistant virus," Ching said. A report on the blood test study appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Ching said earlier studies had attributed AZT resistance to long-term use of the drug. The new study shows that resistance may occur naturally even in patients who have never taken AZT.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB