Meeting report: 30th International Conference on Antiviral Research, in Atlanta, GA, USA

Vere Hodge, R Anthony

In the placebo group, most subjects had cleared the poliovirus by day 18, although two, three and two had cleared the virus by days 22, 29 and 43, respectively. Within the treated group, there appeared to be 'responders' (n ¼ 36) who cleared the virus early, within the period day 2-8. The remainder (n ¼ 54) cleared the virus in the same time span as for placebo, with some clearing virus late (three, five and four by days 22, 29 and 43, respectively). None of the 'responders' had drug-resistant virus but most of the remainder (38/ 54, 70%) did have resistant virus. This resistant virus was transmitted to 10% (5/48) of the placebo group. The conclusions arising from this challenge study were that pocapavir was well tolerated and had significant activity but that there was a high incidence of drug resistance which appeared rapidly and was transmitted to some of the placebo group. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the resistance profile in the target iVDPV population and to urgently develop another drug for combination therapy.