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Up to a third of HIV infections in European gay men may have come from another country
Gus Cairns, 2013-05-10 09:10:00
A study (Frentz) that looked at genetic similarities in the HIV from recently diagnosed people in 24 European countries found that among ‘clusters’ of closely related viruses (which indicate networks of transmission), a quarter of people who were in a cluster were connected to people diagnosed in other countries.
This was the particularly the case in gay men, where nearly a third (31%) of people in viral 'clusters' were connected to at least one diagnosis in another country. In contrast, only 14% of heterosexual people belonged to international clusters, indicating less mobility.
People who had been recently infected, and people with HIV subtype B, were also more likely to belong to a cluster indicating cross-border infections: but as these are both more associated with gay men than with other risk groups, only being gay remained significantly associated with belonging to an international cluster.
Since two-thirds of ‘clusters’ actually only comprised two people, this indicates that a significant proportion of Europeans diagnosed with HIV, and especially gay men, acquire their HIV either while abroad, or from someone from abroad. This phylogenetic study shows that risky sexual encounters among gay men while travelling abroad, as seen in another large Euopean study, are indeed resulting in some cross-border HIV transmission.
On the other hand – as the researchers emphasised – the fact that a majority of connected infections, especially among heterosexuals and people with non-B HIV subtype, were in sole-country clusters, also indicates that we may need to revise assumptions that immigration from high-prevalence countries is still the biggest contributor to infections among heterosexual people.
Source:1
