Viruses, Vol. 13, Pages 601: Phylogenetic Clustering among Asylum Seekers with New HIV-1 Diagnoses in Montreal, QC, Canada

Viruses, Vol. 13, Pages 601: Phylogenetic Clustering among Asylum Seekers with New HIV-1 Diagnoses in Montreal, QC, Canada Viruses doi: 10.3390/v13040601 Authors: Hyejin Park Bluma Brenner Ruxandra-Ilinca Ibanescu Joseph Cox Karl Weiss Marina B. Klein Isabelle Hardy Lavanya Narasiah Michel Roger Nadine Kronfli Migrants are at an increased risk of HIV acquisition. We aimed to use phylogenetics to characterize transmission clusters among newly-diagnosed asylum seekers and to understand the role of networks in local HIV transmission. Retrospective chart reviews of asylum seekers linked to HIV care between 1 June 2017 and 31 December 2018 at the McGill University Health Centre and the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal were performed. HIV-1 partial pol sequences were analyzed among study participants and individuals in the provincial genotyping database. Trees were reconstructed using MEGA10 neighbor-joining analysis. Clustering of linked viral sequences was based on a strong bootstrap support (>97%) and a short genetic distance (<0.01). Overall, 10,645 provincial sequences and 105 asylum seekers were included. A total of 13/105 participant sequences (12%; n = 7 males) formed part of eight clusters. Four clusters (two to three people) included only study participants (n = 9) and four clusters (two to three people) included four study participants clustered with six individuals from the provincial genotyping database. Six (75%) clus...
Source: Viruses - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research