AIDS in Libya

Previously we reported on the case of six medical workers in Libya who face the death sentence having been charged with deliberately contaminating more than 400 children with HIV in 1998. The evidence in their defence has now reached the molecular level and is published today online in Nature.

Oliver Pybus and colleagues in an international research team has used the genetic sequences of the viruses isolated from the patients to reconstruct the exact history, or “family tree” of the outbreak. They assessed accumulated mutations and have demonstrated unequivocally that the HIV subtype involved in this case was already infecting patients well before the medical workers had even set foot in Libya.

The trial ended on November 4 and the verdict is expected for December 19. However, a growing body of scientific evidence already suggested that the outbreak was caused by poor hospital hygiene rather than deliberate action.

Thomas Leitner of Los Alamos National Laboratory has provided forensic HIV evidence in more than thirty such cases over the past fifteen years. He describes the Nature paper as “compelling evidence that the outbreak had started before the accused could have started it.”

Do you agree? What else should we as outsiders be doing if anything?