Changing epidemiology of HIV anonymous testing in Switzerland for 1996-2006.

QUESTIONS UNDER STUDY: To assess whether the prevalence of HIV positive tests in clients at five anonymous testing sites in Switzerland had increased since the end of the 1990s, and ascertain whether there had been any concurrent change in the proportions of associated risk factors. METHODS: Baseline characteristics were analysed, by groups of years, over the eleven consecutive years of data collected from the testing sites. Numbers of HIV positive tests were presented as prevalence/1000 tests performed within each category. Multivariable analyses, stratified by African nationality and risk group of heterosexuals or men who have sex with men (MSM), were done controlling simultaneously for a series of variables. Odds ratios (ORs) were reported together with their 95% confidence intervals (CI). P values were calculated from likelihood ratio tests. RESULTS: There was an increase in the prevalence of positive tests in African heterosexuals between 1996-1999 and 2004-2006, rising from 54.2 to 86.4/1000 and from 5.6 to 25.2/1000 in females and males respectively. The proportion of MSM who knew that one or more of their sexual partners was infected with HIV increased from 2% to 17% and the proportion who reported having more than five sexual partners in the preceding two years increased from 44% to 51%. CONCLUSIONS: Surveillance data from anonymous testing sites continue to provide useful information on the changing epidemiology of HIV and thus inform public health strategies against HIV.

Adjusting AIDS incidence for non-stationary reporting delays: a necessity for country comparisons.

In many industrialized countries, infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is one of the leading causes of mortality in adult persons below age 45. The incidence of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) from surveillance systems is the most common indicator to compare the situation of the HIV-epidemic in different geographic regions or countries. Due to reporting delays, AIDS diagnoses in recent years are incompletely reported and need to be estimated. In this study, we analyze reporting delays in Switzerland and Spain for the period from 1988 to mid-1995 and estimate the number of AIDS diagnoses per year. A descriptive analysis for Switzerland shows increasing reporting delays in recent years. Then, a Bayesian generalized linear model on reverse-time hazards is used to model time trends of the reporting delay distribution. The model shows that in recent years (i) for Switzerland reporting delays became longer and yearly AIDS incidence might continue to increase, and (ii) for Spain, reporting delays became considerably shorter resulting in too large estimates of yearly AIDS incidence if stationarity of reporting delays is assumed. Critical issues of modeling non-stationarity of the reporting system are discussed and it is emphasized that estimates of recent AIDS incidence can be biased significantly if time trends of reporting are ignored-as in the example of Switzerland and Spain, this may severely distort comparisons of the AIDS epidemic in different countries.

Temperature related fertility selection on body size and the sex-ratio gene arrangement in Drosophila pseudoobscura.

We measured temperature-dependent fertility selection on body size in Drosophila pseudoobscura in the laboratory. One hundred single females of each of the three karyotypes involving the 'sex-ratio' (SR) and the standard (ST) gene arrangement on the sex chromosome laid eggs at either 18 or 24 degrees C. The experiment addressed the following hypotheses: (a) Fertility selection on body size is weaker at the higher temperature, explaining in part why genetically smaller flies appear to evolve in populations at warmer localities. (b) Homokaryotypic SR females are less fecund than homokaryotypic ST females, possibly mediated by the effect of body size on fertility, explaining the low frequencies of SR despite its strong advantage due to meiotic drive. The data were also expected to shed light on a mechanism for the evolution of plasticity of body size through fertility selection in environments with an unpredictable temperature regime. Hypothesis (a) was clearly refuted because phenotypically larger ST females had an even larger fertility surplus at the higher temperature and, more importantly, the genetic correlation between fertility and body size disappeared at the lower temperature. As to (b), we found that temperature affects fertility directly and indirectly through body size such that ST and SR females were about equally fecund at both temperatures, although different in size and size-adjusted fertility. We observed heterosis for both size and fertility, which might stabilize the polymorphism in nature. The reaction norms of body size to the temperature difference were steeper for ST females than for SR females, implying that fertility selection could change phenotypic plasticity of body size in a population. Selection on body size depended not only on the temperature, but also on the karyotypes, suggesting that models of phenotype evolution using purely phenotypic fitness functions may often be inadequate.

Phenotypic plasticity for life-history traits in Drosophila melanogaster. III. Effect of the environment on genetic parameters.

We estimated genetic and environmental variance components for developmental time and dry weight at eclosion in Drosophila melanogaster raised in ten different environments (all combinations of 22, 25 and 28 degrees C and 0.5, 1 and 4% yeast concentration, and 0.25% yeast at 25 degrees C). We used six homozygous lines derived from a natural population for complete diallel crosses in each environment. Additive genetic variances were consistently low for both traits (h2 around 10%). The additive genetic variance of developmental time was larger at lower yeast concentrations, but the heritability did not increase because other components were also larger. The additive genetic effects of the six parental lines changed ranks across environments, suggesting a mechanism for the maintenance of genetic variation in heterogenous environments. The variance due to non-directional dominance was small in most environments. However, there was directional dominance in the form of inbreeding depression for both traits. It was pronounced at high yeast levels and temperatures but disappeared when yeast or temperature were decreased. This meant that the heterozygous flies were more sensitive to environmental differences than homozygous flies. Because dominance effects are not heritable, this suggests that the evolution of plasticity can be constrained when dominance effects are important as a mechanism for plasticity.

A note on the application of diallel crosses for the analysis of genetic variation in natural populations.

The complete diallel cross among homozygous lines can be a useful tool to analyze the genetic architecture of natural populations. However, it represents the natural population only approximately, in particular if the number of lines is small and the analyzed traits exhibit inbreeding depression or other forms of directional dominance. Some incorrect expected mean squares that can be found in the literature suggest tests for genetic variance components that can be misleading under such circumstances. Expected mean squares for a factorial analysis and for a modified Hayman analysis are presented and the effect of the number of lines and directional dominance is discussed.