Divergent HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus surveillance, Zaire

Recent HIV infection or divergent HIV or simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) strains may be responsible for Western blot-indeterminate results on 70 serum samples from Zairian hospital employees that were reactive in an enzyme immunoassay. Using universal polymerase chain reaction HIV-1, HIV-2, and SIV primers, we detected 1 (1.4%) HIV-1 sequence. Except for 1 sample, no molecular evidence for unusual HIV- or SIV-like strains in this sampling was found.