A MULTICENTER HIV DRUG RESISTANCE TESTING PROGRAM IN QUÉBEC

H Charest¹, P Gonin¹, D Murphy¹, B Brenner², C Matte³, M Wainberg², M Roger³, M Fauvel^1
1Laboratoire de santé publique du Québec, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec; ²Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec; ³CHUM-Hôpital Notre-Dame, Montréal, Québec

The Laboratoire de santé publique du Québec (LSPQ) has been mandated by the Québec government to design, develop and implement a HIV genotyping programme for drug resistance testing in the province. Three laboratories (Montreal Jewish General Hospital, the CHUM-Hôpital Notre-Dame and the LSPQ) were selected based on expertise, estimated volumes, costs, and patient population. The LSPQ coordinates the network, trains the technical staff and operates a quality control (QC) program. The overall protocols and the interpretation of sequencing data are provided by the company Virco (Virtual phenotypeÔ). Each laboratory is equipped with a ABI 3100 Genetic Analyzer and a series of softwares with fixed settings to carry out the sequence analyses. Data on patients, specimens, data generated at various steps of the analyses as well as the results are integrated into a central Oracle database (DB). Preset queries on the DB, accessible through a WEB browser, allow the monitoring of equipment and QC. In addition, the central DB facilitates data compilation on the frequencies of drug resistance mutations and their distribution in the province of Québec.
During the first 3 months (mid-October to January 2002) 263 samples were analyzed. A volume of 2500 tests is anticipated for the first year of operation. Data on the distribution of HIV resistance mutations (first six months of operation) and HIV subtype (clade) diversity will be presented.