Why do new strains of HIV spread slowly?

EurekAlert
Original Article:  bit.ly/16ARKxO

Most HIV epidemics are still dominated by the first strain that entered a particular population. New research published in PLOS Computational Biology offers an explanation of why the global mixing of HIV variants is so slow.

Researchers from Eötvös Loránd University; Bence Ferdinandy, Dr Viktor Müller, and colleagues, analyzed simulated epidemics to understand how distinct HIV virus strains spreading in the same population compete and interfere with each other.

The authors show that once a strain of HIV has established a stable epidemic, it can slow down the invasion of secondary strains into the population. The primary factor is because individuals infected with the first HIV strain survive for a relatively long time and are resilient to ‘superinfection’ from a second strain. The individuals effectively impose ‘roadblocks’ for the spread of invader strains in the network of sexual contacts.

Full text of article available at link below:  bit.ly/16ARKxO