“Distribution of HIV-1 subtypes in a population”, state Mumtaz & Raddad (STI) in a study of the HIV pandemic in the Middle East, “tracks the spread and evolution of the epidemic”. Various studies covered in our previous blogs have attempted to read the history of the progress of the HIV epidemic through the evidence of […]
Category: HIV Epidemiology
“Hispanic” label masks the specificity of the Puerto Rican #HIV problem in US Northeast
Interventions for HIV prevention should be informed by an understanding of the long-term source of infection, and not just by recent distribution (Mishra & Boily (STIs)). Amongst recent studies that have sought to inform future interventions are investigations of known subgroups thought to be a potential bridge into the wider population – such as migrant […]
“Fast-tracking” the end of the HIV epidemic
At a high-level event on the margin of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last month, convened with the support of UNAIDS, world leaders agreed that ending the AIDS epidemic as a global threat by 2030 was possible, and should be placed at the centre of health development goals. The brochure, Fast Track […]
UNAIDS Gap Report: “The beginning of the end of the AIDS epidemic
In advance of the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne 20th-24th July, UNAIDS has published its Report entitled The Gap. This offers a panoramic survey of progress and challenges to date, graphically presented. The general sense of a tide having at last turned in the global battle against HIV is borne out by the Report’s […]
HIV epidemic among heterosexual non-intravenous drug-users: could HSV-2 co-infection be the driver?
Why such high HIV prevalence reported for non-injecting drug users who are predominantly heterosexual? This reaches 37% in Porto Alegre, Brazil; 43% in China; 13% in Canada; 20% in Florida; 19% in New York City; 24% in Portugal; 29% in Russia? Possible factors include impaired decision making under the influence of drugs or the exchange of sex […]
IDU and HIV in the Middle East: a brief window of opportunity?
There are regions of the world where intravenous drug use (IDU) is known to have a key role in evolving HIV epidemics. Information about IDU populations, on the basis of which to motivate and inform public health interventions, can be scant and of poor quality (STI/Aceijas & Hickman). This deficiency is particularly important to address, […]
Responding appropriately to differentials in HIV care outcomes – are local answers needed?
The recent discovery of the preventative potential of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) (STIs/blog/modelling ART impact) throws into sharp relief the challenge represented for the US by the very inadequate proportion of its 1.2 million HIV+ citizens (<30%) who are virally suppressed. Nunn & Mayer use new geographical mapping tools to bring home forcibly the epidemiological dimension […]
Are African HIV epidemics sustained by exogenous introduction of infection?
What is the relative importance of exogenous and endogenous transmission in sustaining HIV epidemics? In a study of HIV sub-type distribution in the Middle East, Mumtaz & Abu Raddad (STIs) stress the role of multiple exogenous introductions, as evidenced in the wide diversity of genetic sub-types present in most countries. At a more local level, […]
Emergence in Guinea-Bissau of an HIV-1 recombinant variant associated with three-fold increase in disease progression
Studies, including some in STIs journal, have mapped the geographical distribution of HIV types, subtypes, recombinant variants (CRF): see: (Middle East) STIs/Mumtaz&Abu Raddad; (Sub-saharan Africa) STI blogs/Tatem&Salemi. Such work has potential importance for our understanding of the evolution of HIV resistance, and also for the identification and targeting of established and nascent epidemics among core […]
Tracking the history of HIV back to chimpanzees: is the evidence in the West African genome?
Papers explored in earlier STI blogs have traced the distribution through the world of the different HIV subtypes (https://blogs.bmj.com/sti/2013/01/04/reading-the-history-of-the-progress-of-the-hiv-epidemic-through-the-evidence-of-hiv-subtype-distribution/?q=w_sti_blog_sidetab; http://sti.bmj.com/content/87/2/101.full?sid=2b7658a8-4f84-4d8a-b2bc-d5104c523180), and have used this information to track the origins of HIV-AIDS in central/western Africa probably at the beginning of the last century (http://journals.lww.com/aidsonline/pages/results.aspx?k=Tatem%20AND%20Salemi&Scope=AllIssues&txtKeywords=Tatem%20AND%20Salemi). Now a research article published in Evolutionary Biology – Zhao, Roca et al. – has […]