Genome sequencer to improve tracking of HIV transmission
Published:Tuesday | March 8, 2022 | 10:08 AM
The new genome sequencer should improve the tracking of HIV transmission networks in Jamaica.
Tracking seeks to establish how the virus moves among different groups within a population and can prove critical for preventing the spread of the virus.
Chairman of the Department of Microbiology at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), Professor John Lindo, explains that data from the sequencer will be beneficial to experts in HIV control.
“The people doing HIV control will be able to look at how HIV is spread from a core group of persons. For instance, let us say the spread of the virus from sex workers into upper-class persons. You can now use the genome sequencer to look at HIV sequences and to see from where the virus is spreading, from which sexual network into which sexual network,” he said.
Lindo, who is also Professor of Parasite Epidemiology and Consultant Parasitologist, told JIS News that the new genome sequencer uses next-generation sequencing, which allows scientists to see the entire genome of a virus and analyse it.
He explained that this type of sequencing can also be used to look at how drug resistance can develop.
“There are some mutations that you detect, which is what the sequencer does. If those mutations are detected, doctors would not be able to treat patients with certain drugs, because the drugs won't work. That's because the patient would have developed a specific mutation,” Lindo explained.
Virus mutation is normal and usually results in small changes that have little to no effect.
However, with the reality of antibiotic resistance, multiple mutations can lead to changes that prevent an antibiotic from working to stop an infection.
Genome sequencing is critical to the effort at managing this global issue.
- JIS News
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