THE EARLY SPREAD AND EPIDEMIC IGNITION OF HIV-1 IN HUMAN POPULATIONS

Sunday, 5th of October 2014

The origins of HIV-1 in human populations; said to have originated in Leopoldville (present day Kinshasa)

Summary is below and at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6205/56.abstract

Full text is available to journal subscribers.

The early spread and epidemic ignition of HIV-1 in human populations

Nuno R. Faria 1,2,

Andrew Rambaut 3,4,5,

Nimalan Arinaminpathy 1,

Jacques Pépin 11,

David Posada 12,

Martine Peeters 13,

Oliver G. Pybus 1,*,†,

Philippe Lemey 2,*,†

+ Author Affiliations

1Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.

2KU Leuven - University of Leuven, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Clinical and Epidemiological Virology, Minderbroedersstraat 10, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.

3Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Ashworth Laboratories, Kings Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK.

4Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.

5Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, University of Edinburgh, Kings Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK.

6Departments of Biomathematics and Human Genetics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1766, USA.

7Department of Biostatistics, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1766, USA.

8Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA.

9Department of Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, UK.

10Centro de Malária e outras Doenças Tropicais and Unidade de Microbiologia, Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Rua da Junqueira 100, 1349-008 Lisbon, Portugal.

11Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Université de Sherbrooke, CHUS, 3001, 12ème Avenue Nord, Sherbrooke, QC J1H 5N4, Canada.

12Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Immunology, University of Vigo, Vigo 36310, Spain.

13Laboratoire Retrovirus, UMI233, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement and University of Montpellier, 911 Avenue Agropolis, BP5045, 34032 Montpellier, France.

↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: philippe.lemey@rega.kuleuven.be (P.L.); oliver.pybus@zoo.ox.ac.uk (O.G.P.)

↵† These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Editors Summary

Thirty years after the discovery of HIV-1, the early transmission, dissemination, and establishment of the virus in human populations remain unclear. Using statistical approaches applied to HIV-1 sequence data from central Africa, we show that from the 1920s Kinshasa (in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo) was the focus of early transmission and the source of pre-1960 pandemic viruses elsewhere. Location and dating estimates were validated using the earliest HIV-1 archival sample, also from Kinshasa. The epidemic histories of HIV-1 group M and nonpandemic group O were similar until ~1960, after which group M underwent an epidemiological transition and outpaced regional population growth. Our results reconstruct the early dynamics of HIV-1 and emphasize the role of social changes and transport networks in the establishment of this virus in human populations.

The hidden history of the HIV pandemic

Rail and river transport in 1960s Congo, combined with the sexual revolution and changes in health care practices, primed the HIV pandemic. Faria et al. unpick the circumstances surrounding the ascendancy of HIV from its origins before 1920 in chimpanzee hunters in the Cameroon to amplification in Kinshasa. Around 1960, rail links promoted the spread of the virus to mining areas in southeastern Congo and beyond. Ultimately, HIV crossed the Atlantic in Haitian teachers returning home. From those early events, a pandemic was born.

Science, this issue p. 56

Received for publication 30 May 2014.

Accepted for publication 3 September 2014.