History and origin of the HIV-1 subtype C epidemic in South Africa and the greater southern African region
Date
2015-11-17
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nature
Abstract
HIV has spread at an alarming rate in South Africa, making it the country with the highest number
of HIV infections. Several studies have investigated the histories of HIV-1 subtype C epidemics but
none have done so in the context of social and political transformation in southern Africa. There is
a need to understand how these processes affects epidemics, as socio-political transformation is a
common and on-going process in Africa. Here, we genotyped strains from the start of the epidemic
and applied phylodynamic techniques to determine the history of the southern Africa and South
African epidemic from longitudinal sampled data. The southern African epidemic’s estimated dates
of origin was placed around 1960 (95% HPD 1956–64), while dynamic reconstruction revealed
strong growth during the 1970s and 80s. The South African epidemic has a similar origin, caused by
multiple introductions from neighbouring countries, and grew exponentially during the 1980s and
90s, coinciding with socio-political changes in South Africa. These findings provide an indication as to
when the epidemic started and how it has grown, while the inclusion of sequence data from the start
of the epidemic provided better estimates. The epidemic have stabilized in recent years with the
expansion of antiretroviral therapy.
Description
CITATION: Wilkinson, E., Engelbrecht, S. & De Oliveira, T. 2015. History and origin of the HIV-1 subtype C epidemic in South Africa and the greater southern African region. Scientific Reports, 5:16897; doi: 10.1038/srep16897.
The original publication is available at http://www.nature.com/srep
The original publication is available at http://www.nature.com/srep
Keywords
HIV (Viruses), HIV infections -- South Africa
Citation
Wilkinson, E., Engelbrecht, S. & De Oliveira, T. 2015. History and origin of the HIV-1 subtype C epidemic in South Africa and the greater southern African region. Scientific Reports, 5:16897; doi: 10.1038/srep16897.