It is inevitable that drug resistance will become of concern in the treatment of HIV/AIDS infected patients due to the fact that the virus mutates at a high speed, selective pressure and patients that default from treatment. Not only is the management of HIV drug resistant patients difficult, but so too is the management of the patients’ data. The use of information systems and technology in the e-health context is of paramount importance for more complete and effective management of HIV drug resistant patients and their data. The aim of this paper is to describe an ontological-based software agent solution for the integrated management of HIV drug resistant patients using the connectivity of the World Wide Web. Ontologies and Software agents were used to develop the design of the HIV drug resistant patient management system. The system design developed comprises of seven distinct independent and autonomous modules working together to form the virtual backbone of the system. These are the web interface, directory facilitator, service agent broker, service agents, security facilitator, electronic medical record and a Master presenter. Due to the nature of software agents, other modules may easily be added to the system to improve and widen its functionality.

Key words: HIV, Interpretation algorithms, artificial intelligence, software agents, HIV drug resistance, resistance prediction.