Phylodynamic analysis to inform prevention efforts in mixed HIV epidemics

In HIV epidemics of Sub Saharan Africa, the utility of HIV prevention efforts focused on key populations at higher risk of HIV infection and transmission is unclear. We conducted a phylodynamic analysis of HIV-1 pol sequences from four different risk groups in Abuja, Nigeria to estimate transmission patterns between men who have sex with men (MSM) and a representative sample of newly enrolled treatment naive HIV clients without clearly recorded HIV acquisition risks. We develop a realistic dynamical infectious disease model which was fitted to time-scaled phylogenies for subtypes G and CRF02_AG using a structured-coalescent approach. We compare the infectious disease model and structured coalescent to commonly used genetic clustering methods. We estimate HIV incidence among MSM of 7.9% (95%CI, 7.0–10.4) per susceptible person-year, and the population attributable fraction of HIV transmissions from MSM to reproductive age females to be 9.1% (95%CI, 3.8–18.6), and from the reproductive age women to MSM as 0.2% (95%CI, 0.06–0.3). Applying these parameter estimates to evaluate a test-and-treat HIV strategy that target MSM reduces the total HIV infections averted by half with a 2.5-fold saving. These results suggest the importance of addressing the HIV treatment needs of MSM in addition to cost-effectiveness of specific scale-up of treatment for MSM in the context of the mixed HIV epidemic observed in Nigeria.