Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

High Divergence within the Major HIV Type 1 Subtype B Epidemic in Panama

2008; Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.; Volume: 24; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1089/aid.2008.0153

1931-8405

Sara Ahumada-Ruiz, Concha Casado, Iván Toala-González, Dario Flores-Figueroa, A Rodriguez‐French, Cecilio López‐Galíndez,

HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk

The first molecular epidemiology study of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in Panama has been performed with plasma samples from 66 AIDS patients infected by different transmission routes and obtained from distinct locations. All samples were amplified by RT-PCR and sequenced in gag (p17) and env (C2–C4) genes. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that 64 (97%) of the samples belong to subtype B. We also identified the presence of two CRF, one CRF12_BF and one CRF02_AG. The most notable feature of the subtype B epidemic in Panama was the large genetic distance among isolates with a mean of 15.2% but reaching up to 31.3 % in env, indicating an epidemic with a long period of evolution.