The sexually driven epidemic in youths in China’s southwestern border region was caused by dynamic emerging multiple recombinant HIV-1 strains

Dehong prefecture, Yunnan province on China’s southwestern border was the gateway of the country’s AIDS epidemic. Studies on HIV-1 molecular epidemiology will provide key information on virus transmission dynamics and help to inform HIV prevention strategies. HIV-1 infected youths (age 16–25 years) diagnosed in the continuous 3 months in 2009 to 2012 were enrolled. By means of phylogenetic and statistical analyses, It was showed that two thirds (133/205) of youths in Dehong, of which 74.1% were infected sexually, were infected by uncharacterized recombinant HIV-1 strains. Among them about 59.4% (79/131) were unique recombinant forms (URFs) and 40.6% (54/131) formed 11 transmission clusters, termed potential circulating recombinant forms (pCRFs). The emergence of recombinants was statistically significant related with people of low education, residents outside the capital city of Dehong and being Myanmar residents. It was the first report with ongoing HIV-1 recombinant strains in a sexually driven epidemic area in China. Great efforts should be put on reducing multiple risk exposures behavior in local young people, containing the spread of pCRFs to other regions, and preventing the URFs from evolving into future CRFs. Collaborative prevention across border is needed to better control the local AIDS epidemic.