HIV-2: Emergence and Epidemiology
Moderator: Susan Perkins (Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, American Museum of Natural History)
Nuno Faria (University of Oxford)
“Establishment and Early Spread of HIV Lineages”
Thirty years after the discovery of HIV-1 and HIV-2, the zoonotic origins of AIDS viruses are now well established. However, the early transmission, dissemination and the factors underlying the establishment of HIV/AIDS in populations remain less clear. This paper uses a well-established statistical approach to trace the early spread and genetic history of HIV-1 in Central African; and HIV-2 in West Africa. Spatial genetic analysis strongly supports an origin of the HIV-1 group M pandemic in Kinshasa in or around 1920. Similar approaches highlight the role of Guinea-Bissau, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal as the main HIV-2 group A locations in the early stages of the epidemic. This methodology can also trace the out-of-African spread and ignition of a HIV-1 lineage across risk groups. These analyses are consistent with social factors playing a key role the establishment of HIV lineages in human populations.
