AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, November 1, 2004
Staff Medical Writers

According to a study from Scotland, "Historically, subtype B viruses in men who have sex with men (MSM) and injecting drug users (IDU) dominated the HIV epidemic in the United Kingdom, whereas non-B heterosexual infections dominate globally.

"Heterosexual contact is now the most common route of transmission in the United Kingdom. Here we monitor HIV subtype in Scotland, and link it to origin of infection."

"HIV-1 sequence was generated from new diagnoses and the subtype thus obtained linked with demographic data. Virus was subtyped from 80% (137/171) of all new diagnoses in Scotland," wrote D.L. Yirrell and colleagues.

"Of 58 individuals infected by heterosexual contact, 74% (43) harbored non-B viruses, contrasting with 7% (5/68) of those infected by IDU or MSM. Eighty-four per cent of non-Bs (46/55) were probably acquired outside the United Kingdom," the authors continued, "but nine individuals probably acquired their non-B infection in the United Kingdom."

"Non-B subtypes of HIV-1 predominate in recently diagnosed, heterosexually acquired infections in Scotland and are present in all risk groups," Yirrell concluded, "even those with no exposure outside the United Kingdom."

Yirrell and colleagues published their study in Epidemiology and Infection (HIV-1 subtype in Scotland: the establishment of a national surveillance system. Epidemiol Infect. 2004 Aug;132(4):693-8.

For more information, contact D.L. Yirrell, Gartnavel Royal Hospital, W Scotland Specialist Virology Center, 1053 Great Western Rd., Glasgow G12 0YA, Lanark, Scotland.

Publisher contact information for the journal Epidemiology and Infection is: Cambridge University Press, 40 West 20TH St., New York, NY 10011-4211, USA.

The information in this article comes under the major subject areas of HIV/AIDS, Epidemiology, Genomics & Genetics, and Risk Factor.

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

Reference

Yirrell DL, Shaw L, Burns SM, Cameron SO, et al., "HIV-1 subtype in Scotland: the establishment of a national surveillance system", Epidemiol Infect. 2004 Aug;132(4):693-8

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