Unless they do not compensate by additional mutation/s that restore replicative replication efficiency, then after termination of antiviral therapy they no longer have any advantage and are replaced by lower resistant variants and WT. So I don't think that relapse requires that the virus become at least low level resistant.
Thus you are suggesting relapsed patients are relapse because they develop high level resistant strains of HCV that then mutate to be low level resistance strains once the treatment stops - i.e. the low level resistance strains are what drive the relapse, but only because high level resistance prevented the HCV from being wiped out during treatment?
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.