Subtypes and Risk Behaviors Among Incident HIV Cases in the Bangkok Men Who Have Sex with Men Cohort Study, Thailand, 2006–2014

Abstract HIV-1 incidence and prevalence remain high among men who have sex with men (MSM), and transgender women (TGW), in Thailand. To examine the link between epidemiologic factors and HIV-1 subtype transmission among Thai MSM, we compared covariates of infection with HIV CRF01_AE and other HIV strains among participants in the Bangkok MSM Cohort Study (BMCS). The BMCS was an observational cohort study of Thai MSM and TGW with up to 60 months of follow-up at 4 monthly intervals. Participants underwent HIV/sexually transmitted infections testing and provided behavioral data at each visit. Infecting viral strain was characterized by gene sequencing and/or multiregion hybridization assay. We correlated behavioral/clinical variables with infecting strain using Cox proportional hazards. Among a total of 1372 HIV seronegative enrolled participants with 4,192 person-years of follow-up, we identified 215 seroconverters between April 2006 and December 2014, with 177 infected with CRF01_AE and 38 with non-CRF01_A...