Origins of HIV-1 pandemic identified

the Clinical Advisor take:

Scientists have pinpointed the origin of the HIV-1 group M pandemic, the event that led to the international spread of the virus, to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in the 1920s.

The HIV-1 pandemic resulted in almost 75 million infections to date, Nuno R. Faria, of the University of Oxford, and colleagues reported in Science. The combination of factors such urban growth, strong railway links during Belgian colonial rule, and changes to the sex trade contributed to the emergence of HIV from Kinshasa to the rest of the world.

“Until now most studies have taken a piecemeal approach to HIV's genetic history, looking at particular HIV genomes in particular locations,” said Oliver Pybus, one of the team’s researchers in a press release from the University of Oxford.

“For the first time we have [analyzed] all the available evidence using the latest phylogeographic techniques, which enable us to statistically estimate where a virus comes from. This means we can say with a high degree of certainty where and when the HIV pandemic originated,” explained Pybus.

Kinshasha’s advanced railway system made it one of the most accessible countries on the African continent, and the DRC saw a rapid spread of HIV in its travelers. “By the 1960s transport systems, such as the railways, that enabled the virus to spread vast distances were less active, but by that time the seeds of the pandemic were already sown across Africa and beyond,” explained Pybus.

More research into the social factors that may have contributed to the origin of the HIV pandemic is needed to shed light into the conditions that helped HIV grow so widely.