Utilization of dried blood spot specimens can expedite nationwide surveillance of HIV drug resistance in resource-limited settings

Introduction Surveillance of HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) is crucial to ensuring the continued success of antiretroviral therapy (ART) programs. With the concern of reduced genotyping sensitivity of HIV on dried blood spots (DBS), DBS for HIVDR surveillance have been limited to ART-naive populations. To investigate if DBS under certain conditions may also be a feasible sample type for HIVDR testing in ART patients, we piloted nationwide surveys for HIVDR among ART patients using DBS in two African countries with rapid scale-up of ART.