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Objective: To investigate the status of vaccination in children with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection., Methods: A questionnaire survey was performed in 148 children in Hunan province, China who were registered in China's Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Comprehensive Response Information Management System up to December 31, 2016 and were aged <15 years at the time of confirmed diagnosis of HIV infection. The information on vaccination, diagnosis of HIV infection, and diagnosis and treatment of related diseases was collected., Results: Of the 148 children with HIV infection, there were 70 boys (47.3%) and 78 girls (52.7%); 140 children had an age of 3.8 (0.2-14.8) years at the time of confirmed diagnosis, and 8 children refused to answer this question. Mother-to-child transmission was found in 133 children (91.7%), blood transmission in 1 child (0.7%), and unknown in 14 children (9.5%). Of the 148 children, 129 (87.2%) received antiviral therapy and 19 (12.8%) did not receive such treatment. The vaccination rates of hepatitis B vaccine, bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine, poliomyelitis live attenuated vaccine and diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine ranged from 70.9% to 77.7%, which was significantly lower than the national level (≥97%); the vaccination rates of the other vaccines in the National Immunization Program gradually decreased with age. No severe adverse effects were reported after vaccination., Conclusions: Mother-to-child transmission is the main route of HIV infection in Chinese children. The diagnosis of children with HIV infection is significantly delayed, with low vaccination rates. Efforts should be made to strengthen early diagnosis, early treatment and vaccination in children with HIV infection, in order to improve their quality of life.

Objective: To analyze the genetic characteristics of HIV-1 CRF01&#95;AE strains prevailing in the four provinces of southern China., Methods: Plasma samples were collected from the newly diagnosed HIV-1 individuals reported in 2006 in Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi and Hunan province. The gag and env gene fragments were amplified from RNA template extracted from plasma using RT and nested PCR methods. CRF01&#95;AE sequences were analyzed by phylogenetic methods and characterized by calculating the genetic distance and Entropy analysis., Results: Two main epidemic clusters were found to exist in the CRF01&#95;AE strains from 210 HIV-1 CRF01&#95; AE infected individuals collected in the 4 provinces, southern China. It was found that no international reference strain was closely correlated with cluster I, which including 123 samples. The strains in cluster II, consisting 57 cases of samples, were closely related with the strains identified in Vietnam. Genetic distance analysis of gag and env genes showed that the diversity of cluster I was obviously less than that of cluster II. Data on nucleotide polymorphism showed that nucleotides compositions of 42 sites in gag and 40 sites in env were significantly different between the two clusters. When compared with cluster II, the polymorphism decreased at 61 nucleotide sites but increased at 21 sites in cluster I., Conclusion: This was the first report describing that two main epidemic clusters were existed in CRF01&#95;AE strains prevailing in the 4 provinces, Southern China. The virus in cluster I was the dominant strain in this region, with shorter period of circulation and higher proportion seen in the HIV-infected population, which might belong to CRF01&#95;AE strain with certain features facilitating the spread of the virus. The virus in cluster II was highly homology with the CRF01&#95;AE strains from Vietnam, and seemed to have had several events of epidemics in populations in border regions of China and Vietnam.

Objective: To survey the prevalence of HIV-1 drug resistance in patients newly diagnosed as HIV positive and who were younger than 25 years of age but had not received treatment with antiretroviral treatment (ART) in Hunan province., Methods: Serum specimens of HIV infected individuals were collected and HIV-1 pol genetic mutations associated with drug resistance were identified with PCR and interpreted with Stanford HIV Drug Resistance Database., Results: A total number of 69 patients whose HIV sequences were amplified successfully with 2 (2.9%) specimens appeared mutations associated with HIV-1 drug resistance in the reverse transcriptase region, including one as V75M and the other one as K103N and V181C. Data showed that the prevalence of drug resistance in Hunan was 2.9%., Conclusion: The first line regiments of national ART seemed still effective. Most of the AIDS patients did not need to be tested on drug resistance status before starting ART. However, it is important to start HIV drug resistance surveillance in no time.