According to a survey published on Tuesday, more than 40 percent of Americans infected with HIV do not take their drugs as directed. The survey found that 43 percent of HIV patients polled admitted that they did not take all of their drugs as prescribed - even though multi-drug cocktails have been shown to keep the virus at bay when taken properly.

When patients do not take their drugs properly, the virus can quickly mutate into drug-resistant forms. "Resistance to HIV medications can quickly occur because of inadequate drug combinations or inadequate adherence to therapy," Dr. Joel Gallant, an AIDS researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

The telephone survey of 665 people infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS was conducted by Johnston, Zabor and associates on behalf of Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical company . It found that doctors have even less faith in their HIV patients. The 100 doctors surveyed estimated that 54 percent of their patients do not take their medicine properly.

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