Study population and demographic features
The demographic and clinical characteristics of the 2,107 patients are summarized in Supplementary Table 1. Most patients included in the study were Koreans (92.2%, 1943/2107) and men (93.3%, 1966/2107), with a median age of 37.2 (20.1‒85.5) years. In a subgroup of the Severance Hospital patients, 81% were ART-naïve and 19% were ART-treated. Subtype B infections were predominant in the total study population at 75.7% (1595/2107). Non-B subtype strains were identified in 24.3% (512/2107) of the patients.
Several demographic features differed in the sub-group analysis. Women were more likely to harbor non-B infections (51.8%, 73/141) than men (22.3%, 439/1966). The difference in the mean age between women and men was significant (44.5 vs. 40.4 years, P ≤ 0.001). Women’s ethnicity was more likely to be non-Korean (26.2%, 37/141) compared with men’s ethnicity (6.5%, 127/1966; Supplementary Table 2). Koreans were more likely to harbor Subtype B infections (79.9%, 1553/1943) than non-Korean (25.6%, 42/164). The difference in the mean age between Koreans and non-Koreans was significant (40.9 vs. 38.0 years, P = 0.001). The rate of harboring high-level-resistance between Koreans and non-Koreans did not differ significantly (12.5% vs. 9.8%, P = 0.365; Supplementary Table 3). Moreover, there was no statistically significant difference in the HIV-1 subtype distribution between patients from Severance Hospital and those from other hospitals in South Korea (P = 0.544; Supplementary Table 4).