Evolution of Subtypes of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 in Kinshasa over the Last 30 years: Documentary Review from 1985 to 2015

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More than 30 years after its official declaration, the infection by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) remains a major public health problem in Kinshasa and even for the entire Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The prevalence of the HIV epidemic in Kinshasa was of 1.6% according to the reports of the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) in 2014. It has remained more or less stable below 5% since the beginning of this century for the country. HIV, which is a Lentivirus of the Retroviridae family, has a diversity that is equal to the complexity of its treatment. This virus is divided into 2 types (HIV-1 and HIV-2), each of which is divided into different groups, subtypes and recombinant forms. In the DRC, in Kinshasa in particular, the HIV epidemic is dominated by the group M of Type 1. This group M comprises several subtypes and Circulating Recombinant Forms (CRFs) as well as Unknown Recombinant Forms (URFs) which stayed very dynamically in Kinshasa. Since 1985, with the first phylogenetic study on the population of Kinshasa, the distribution of strains circulating in the city has changed considerably; it is in constant evolution.

Some subtypes have  been confirmed over time while others gradually disappear due to pressure and different selections. The objective of this review was to expose the specificities of the HIV epidemic in Kinshasa, in terms of the evolution of different variants of HIV over time.Various publications and abstract papers presented at a conference focusing on the identification of the different variants of HIV Type 1 in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), were the subject of this review. The search for these published works on the various variants of HIV Type 1 was done on the internet from the following websites: (i) MEDLINE / PubMed; (ii) POPLINE electronic database of published documents; (iii) Public access data on conference papers; (iv) Scientific report published on the Internet; (v) Google Scholar; (vi) Cochrane Library. This online research was based on the following key words: “HIV, subtype, Kinshasa”, “genotype, HIV, Kinshasa” and “HIV strains in Kinshasa”.

virus is divided into 2 types (HIV-1 and HIV-2), each of which is divided into different groups, subtypes and recombinant forms. In the DRC, in Kinshasa in particular, the HIV epidemic is dominated by the group M of Type 1. This group M comprises several subtypes and Circulating Recombinant Forms (CRFs) as well as Unknown Recombinant Forms (URFs) which stayed very dynamically in Kinshasa. Since 1985, with the first phylogenetic study on the population of Kinshasa, the distribution of strains circulating in the city has changed considerably; it is in constant evolution. Some subtypes have population, the measurement methods and the objectives were considered in the evaluation of the articles. Reading the various articles made it possible to exclude articles that did not directly concern the HIV-1 strains circulating in Kinshasa. Pediatric studies, studies on migrant populations as well as studies without original data were not retained for this review.