High plasma HIV load in the CRF01-AE outbreak among injecting drug users in Finland

An explosive outbreak of HIV-1 caused by the recombinant subtype AE (CRF01-AE) was detected in 1998 among Finnish injecting drug users (IDUs). These IDUs were compared with IDUs from the Amsterdam Cohort Study (ACS) infected with subtype B, to detect possible differences between 2 western IDU cohorts infected with different subtypes. Markers for progression (viral load and CD4+lymphocyte count) were compared between 93 IDUs with CRF01-AE and 63 IDUs with subtype B. Only persons with a seroconversion interval =2 y were included. During 48 months of follow-up, both cohorts were similar in CD4+ cell decline, but the Finnish IDUs had 0.34-0.94 log10 copies/ml higher viral loads. The Amsterdam IDUs had a low viral load (<1000 copies/ml) significantly more often than the Finnish IDUs. The difference could not be explained by the use of antiretrovirals. The higher viral load may have contributed to the rapid spread of the recombinant virus in the Finnish outbreak.