1. Phylogenetic Clustering among Asylum Seekers with New HIV-1 Diagnoses in Montreal, QC, Canada.
- Author
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Park, Hyejin, Brenner, Bluma, Ibanescu, Ruxandra-Ilinca, Cox, Joseph, Weiss, Karl, Klein, Marina B., Hardy, Isabelle, Narasiah, Lavanya, Roger, Michel, Kronfli, Nadine, and Switzer, William M. M.
- Subjects
POLITICAL refugees ,HIV ,HIV infection transmission ,GENETIC distance ,DIAGNOSIS ,GENOTYPES - Abstract
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%) clusters were HIV subtype B. We identified the presence of HIV-1 phylogenetic clusters among asylum seekers and at a population-level. Our findings highlight the complementary role of cohort data and population-level genotypic surveillance to better characterize transmission clusters in Quebec. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
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