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Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical

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Vandamme AM

Limited cross-border infections in patients newly diagnosed with HIV in Europe

International travel plays a role in the spread of HIV-1 across Europe. It is, however, not known whether international travel is more important for spread of the epidemic as compared to endogenous infections within single countries. In this study, phylogenetic associations among HIV of newly diagnosed patients were determined across Europe.
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A public HTLV-1 molecular epidemiology database for sequence management and data mining.

BACKGROUND:
It is estimated that 15 to 20 million people are infected with the human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1). At present, there are more than 2,000 unique HTLV-1 isolate sequences published. A central database to aggregate sequence information from a range of epidemiological aspects including HTLV-1 infections, pathogenesis, origins, and evolutionary dynamics would be useful to scientists and physicians worldwide.
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Ascorbic acid has superior ex vivo antiproliferative, cell death-inducing and immunomodulatory effects over IFN-α in HTLV-1-associated myelopathy.

BACKGROUND:
Clear therapeutic guidelines for HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) are missing due to the lack of randomized double-blind controlled clinical trials. Moderate yet similar clinical benefit has been demonstrated for IFN-α and high-dose ascorbic acid (AA) monotherapy in a large open clinical trial.
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Phylogeographical footprint of colonial history in the global dispersal of human immunodeficiency virus type 2 group A.

Human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2) emerged in West Africa and has spread further to countries that share socio-historical ties with this region. However, viral origins and dispersal patterns at a global scale remain poorly understood. Here, we adopt a Bayesian phylogeographic approach to investigate the spatial dynamics of HIV-2 group A (HIV-2A) using a collection of 320 partial pol and 248 partial env sequences sampled throughout 19 countries worldwide.
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Gender differences in HIV disease progression and treatment outcomes among HIV patients one year after starting antiretroviral treatment (ART) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

We investigated gender differences in treatment outcome during first line antiretroviral treatment (ART) in a hospital setting in Tanzania, assessing clinical, social demographic, virological and immunological factors.
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High frequency of antiviral drug resistance and non-b subtypes in HIV-1 patients failing antiviral therapy in Cuba.

INTRODUCTION:
Emergence of HIV-1 drug resistance may limit the sustained benefits of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in settings with limited laboratory monitoring and drug options. The objective is to implement the surveillance of drug resistance and subtypes in HIV-1 patients failing ART in Cuba.
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Comparison of HIV-1 Genotypic Resistance Test Interpretation Systems in Predicting Virological Outcomes Over Time

BACKGROUND: Several decision support systems have been developed to interpret HIV-1 drug resistance genotyping results. This study compares the ability of the most commonly used systems (ANRS, Rega, and Stanford’s HIVdb) to predict virological outcome at 12, 24, and 48 weeks. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Included were 3763 treatment-change episodes (TCEs) for which a HIV-1 genotype was […]
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HIV-1 protease mutation 82M contributes to phenotypic resistance to protease inhibitors in subtype G.

OBJECTIVES:
The purpose of this study was the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the in vitro effect of HIV-1 protease (PR) mutation 82M on replication capacity and susceptibility to the eight clinically available PR inhibitors (PIs).
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Phylodynamics of the HIV-1 CRF02_AG clade in Cameroon.

Evolutionary analyses have revealed an origin of pandemic HIV-1 group M in the Congo River basin in the first part of the XX century, but the patterns of historical viral spread in or around its epicentre remain largely unexplored. Here, we combine epidemiologic and molecular sequence data to investigate the spatiotemporal patterns of the CRF02_AG clade.
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