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| Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Corbis via Getty Images |
Researchers at UC San Diego and UC Irvine found that when border restrictions were in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, HIV transmissions in Tijuana and San Diego went up.
The study concluded that people who were crossing the border were moving COVID-19 and HIV back and forth between the two countries.
“This shows that efforts to build a higher wall or policies to stop immigration will not mitigate HIV spread,” said Dr. Tetyana Vasylyeva, assistant professor of population health and disease prevention at UC Irvine.
According to the study, researchers applied “a molecular clock” to look at cases as a way to determine where and when HIV was spread.
They found all the new “clusters had sequences from participants on both sides of the border, indicating that cross-border transmission was happening right when the border was closed.”
Despite the border closure, one cluster that reportedly grew started with “two people from San Diego that used drugs in Tijuana.”
They found that during the 18-month period of their study, nine people contracted HIV, mostly during the pandemic.
“Nine sounds like a small number, but it’s actually quite a lot of people because in the U.S., HIV incidence is relatively low,” said Dr. Britt Skaathun, adjunct assistant professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “We were surprised to see this change in HIV status in such a short amount of time and wanted to look more closely at these clusters.”
The investigation centered around 618 participants from October 2020 to October 2021, focusing on three different groups: people who live in San Diego who cross the border to use drugs in Tijuana; people who live in San Diego and use drugs in San Diego; and people who live in Tijuana and use drugs in Tijuana. --->READ MORE HERE
The border crossing separating San Diego, California, from Tijuana, Mexico, is a dynamic place. When it was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, drug tourism from San Diego to Tijuana continued. This provided a flow of people in both directions, bringing with them not only the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2) but also the virus that causes AIDS (HIV). A collaborative study led by researchers from University of California San Diego and Irvine, recently published in the Lancet, found that rather than preventing the spread of disease, closing the border actually increased the rate of HIV transmission.
Injection drug use increases the risk of HIV infection through the sharing of injection equipment. To investigate the dynamics between border closure, drug use and HIV transmission, Britt Skaathun, Ph.D., adjunct assistant professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and first author on the paper, led an effort that studied 618 participants from October 2020 to October 2021, focusing on three different groups: people who live in San Diego who cross the border to use drugs in Tijuana; people who live in San Diego and use drugs in San Diego; and people who live in Tijuana and use drugs in Tijuana.
Subjects first underwent interviews, answering questions about their demographics, drug use behaviors, sexual behaviors, sexual identity and border crossing behaviors. Every six months they gave blood samples and were tested for HIV and hepatitis C.
Tetyana Vasylyeva, D.Phil., assistant professor of population health and disease prevention at UC Irvine, and senior author on the study, analyzed the spread of HIV through the virus genetic data. Combining molecular epidemiology with the questionnaire answers, the scientists found that people were crossing the border in both directions and being exposed to HIV despite government efforts to keep the border closed. The scientists then deepened their analysis by applying advanced molecular techniques. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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