Abstract
Non-pandemic variants of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) subtype B accounts for a significant fraction of HIV infections in several Caribbean islands, Northeastern South American countries and the Northern Brazilian states of Roraima and Amazonas. In this paper, we used a comprehensive dataset of HIV-1 subtype B pol sequences sampled in Amazonas and Roraima between 2007 and 2017 to reconstruct the phylogeographic and demographic dynamics of the major HIV-1 subtype B non-pandemic Brazilian lineage, designated as BCAR-BR-I. Our analyses revealed that its origin could be traced to one of many viral introductions from French Guiana and Guyana into Northern Brazil, which probably occurred in the state of Amazonas around the late 1970s. The BCAR-BR-I clade was rapidly disseminated from Amazonas to Roraima, and the epidemic grew exponentially in these Northern Brazilian states during the 1980s and 1990s, coinciding with a period of economic and fast population growth in the region. The spreading rate of the BCAR-BR-I clade, however, seems to have slowed down since the early 2000s, despite the continued expansion of the HIV-1 epidemic in this region in the last decade.
Highlights
According to the last report of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the number of new HumanImmunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) infections remained roughly stable or decreased in mostBrazilian states from 2007 to 2017 [1]
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) Brazilian sequences were aligned with subtype BCAR pol sequences from Hispaniola (n = 130), noted as the most probable epicenter of subtype B epidemic, and with BCAR polsequences representative of the BCAR-TT (n = 41) and BCAR-SA-I clades (n = 69) circulating in Trinidad and Tobago, French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname, that were described as the non-Brazilian lineages most closely related to the BCAR-BR-I clade [3,5,6]
HIV-1 subtype B non-pandemic pol sequences from Brazil, Northern South America and Trinidad and Tobago previously classified as BCAR-BR-I, BCAR-SA-I and BCAR-TT were combined with BCAR
Summary
According to the last report of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the number of new HumanImmunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) infections remained roughly stable or decreased in mostBrazilian states from 2007 to 2017 [1]. In the Northern Brazilian region, by contrast, the HIV epidemic expanded continuously and notable increases in the AIDS incidence rate were recorded in the last decade in the states of Roraima (28%), Amazonas (35%), Para (55%), Amapá (68%) and Tocantins (143%) [1]. In the 2018 AIDS incidence rate ranking of all Brazilian states, Roraima and Amazonas respectively occupyied the first and fourth positions [1]. The HIV-1 subtype B spread in the Americas from a founder strain probably introduced in the island of Hispaniola (shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic) around the mid-1960s [2,3,4]. From Trinidad and Tobago, the BCAR-TT lineage landed in Northern South
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