Researchers are almost certain the HIV pandemic originated in the Congo in the 1920s, the result of a "perfect storm" of busy rail networks, migrant labour and changes to the sex trade. An international team, led by Oxford University and University of Leuven scientists, reconstructed the genetic history of the HIV-1 group M pandemic, the event that saw HIV spread across the African continent and around the world. They have concluded it originated in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. HIV is known to have been transmitted from primates and apes to humans at least 13 times but only one of these transmission events has led to a human pandemic. It was only with the event that led to HIV-1 group M that a pandemic occurred, resulting in almost 75 million infections to date. The team’s analysis suggests that, between the 1920s and 1950s, a 'perfect storm' of factors, including urban growth, strong railway links during Belgian colonial rule, and changes to the sex trade, combined to see HIV emerge from Kinshasa and spread across the globe. “Until now most studies have taken a piecemeal approach to HIV's genetic history, looking at particular HIV genomes in particular locations,” says Professor Oliver Pybus of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, a senior author of the paper. “For the first time we have analysed 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. It seems a combination of factors in Kinshasa in the early 20th Century created a 'perfect storm' for the emergence of HIV, leading to a generalised epidemic with unstoppable momentum that unrolled across sub-Saharan Africa.”Read more here
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 6th October 2014 - 9:20am