Showing papers by "Leondios G. Kostrikis published in 2013"
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Erasmus University Rotterdam1, Utrecht University2, Karolinska Institutet3, Karolinska University Hospital4, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens5, Universidade Nova de Lisboa6, Robert Koch Institute7, Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg8, University of Bergen9, University of Milan10, University College Dublin11, Tel Aviv University12, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg13, University of Cyprus14, National Institutes of Health15, University of Ljubljana16, Slovak Medical University17, University of Belgrade18, Rega Institute for Medical Research19
TL;DR: The findings indicate that the transmission of HIV-1 in Europe is predominantly occurring between patients from the same country, which could have implications for HIV- 1 transmission prevention programmes.
Abstract: Background: International travel plays a role in the spread of HIV-1 across Europe. It is, however, not known whether international travel is more important for spread of the epidemic as compared to endogenous infections within single countries. In this study, phylogenetic associations among HIV of newly diagnosed patients were determined across Europe. Results: Data came from the SPREAD programme which collects samples of newly diagnosed patients that are representative for national HIV epidemics. 4260 pol sequences from 25 European countries and Israel collected in 2002–2007 were included. We identified 457 clusters including 1330 persons (31.2% of all patients). The cluster size ranged between 2 and 28. A number of 987 patients (74.2%) were part of a cluster that consisted only of patients originating from the same country. In addition, 135 patients (10.2%) were in a cluster including only individuals from neighboring countries. Finally, 208 patients (15.6%) clustered with individuals from countries without a common border. Clustering with patients from the same country was less prevalent in patients being infected with B subtype (P-value <0.0001), in men who have sex with men (P-value <0.0001), and in recently infected patients (P-value =0.045). Conclusions: Our findings indicate that the transmission of HIV-1 in Europe is predominantly occurring between patients from the same country. This could have implications for HIV-1 transmission prevention programmes. Because infections through travelling between countries is not frequently observed it is important to have good surveillance of the national HIV-1 epidemics.
43 citations