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LETTERS
Reply to Pape et al.: The phylogeography of HIV-1 group M subtype B
*Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721; Department of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33125; Ancient DNA and Evolution Group, Centre for Ancient Genetics, Niels Bohr Institute and Biological Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark; and ¶Institute for Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, United Kingdom
In reply to the letter from Pape et al., our goal was to trace the pathway of a pandemic with the most powerful methods currently available, not to assign blame in any way. Haiti deserves only compassion for its longstanding HIV epidemic and admiration for its successes in battling HIV/AIDS.
Our conclusions were not based only on five archival sequences from Haitian-American patients as Pape et al. claim. An additional 117 sequences from 19 countries, including Haiti, were an integral part of the analyses (1). All of the Haitian and Haiti-linked strains occupied the earliest-branching positions within subtype B. There would be virtually no chance of observing this pattern if the Haitian epidemic had emerged from the United States (1).
Twenty of the first 23 AIDS patients diagnosed at Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital were Haitian Americans, even though the vast majority of admitted patients during
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: worobey@email.arizona.edu
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