Phylogenetic Clustering among Asylum Seekers with New HIV-1 Diagnoses in Montreal, QC, Canada.

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 w

SUBMITTER: Park H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8066823 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature