Final Activity Report Summary - HIVOXFORD (The Intra- and Inter- Host Evolutionary Dynamics of HIV) For two years, from December 2004 to December 2006, the fellow Dr Tulio de Oliveira received extensive training in evolutionary biology from members of Oxford University's Department of Zoology. One of the main objectives of this project was to apply evolutionary methodology to the historical reconstruction of HIV / AIDS strains. This evolutionary technique was applied in the analysis of HIV-1 and HCV sequences from a hospital outbreak in Benghazi, Libya. The analyses demonstrated that the HIV-1 hospital outbreak was initiated in the mid 1990s. The date of the origin of the outbreak was of crucial importance to the public, since six foreign medical workers were accused of purposefully initiating the HIV-1 outbreak in 1998. The results of this analysis were published in 'Nature' (de Oliveira et al., 2006) and received worldwide public attention. The publication, journal editorials and journalist reports were attached in HIVOXFORD final activity report.
