A lab on wheels is tracking HIV spread in war-torn Ukraine Skip to content Subscribe today Every print subscription comes with full digital access Subscribe Now Menu All Topics Health Humans Anthropology Health & Medicine Archaeology Psychology View All Life Animals Plants Ecosystems Paleontology Neuroscience Genetics Microbes View All Earth Agriculture Climate Oceans Environment View All Physics Materials Science Quantum Physics Particle Physics View All Space Astronomy Planetary Science Cosmology View All Magazine Menu All Stories Multimedia Reviews Puzzles Collections Educator Portal Century of Science Unsung characters Coronavirus Outbreak Newsletters Investors Lab About SN Explores Our Store SIGN IN Donate Home INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM SINCE 1921 SIGN IN Search Open search Close search Home INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM SINCE 1921 All Topics Earth Agriculture Climate Oceans Environment Humans Anthropology Health & Medicine Archaeology Psychology Life Animals Plants Ecosystems Paleontology Neuroscience Genetics Microbes Physics Materials Science Quantum Physics Particle Physics Space Astronomy Planetary Science Cosmology Tech Computing Artificial Intelligence Chemistry Math Science & Society All Topics Health Humans Humans Anthropology Health & Medicine Archaeology Psychology Recent posts in Humans Life An African monkey ate a rope squirrel and came down with mpox By Erin Garcia de Jesús54 minutes ago Health & Medicine A lab on wheels is tracking HIV spread in war-torn Ukraine By Kamal Nahas5 hours ago Archaeology Iron Age mass grave may hold unusual victims: mostly women and children By Tom MetcalfeFebruary 23, 2026 Life Life Animals Plants Ecosystems Paleontology Neuroscience Genetics Microbes Recent posts in Life Life An African monkey ate a rope squirrel and came down with mpox By Erin Garcia de Jesús54 minutes ago Animals Intricate silk helps net-casting spiders ensnare prey in webs By Emily Conover3 hours ago Health & Medicine A lab on wheels is tracking HIV spread in war-torn Ukraine By Kamal Nahas5 hours ago Earth Earth Agriculture Climate Oceans Environment Recent posts in Earth Climate Halting irreversible changes to Antarctica depends on choices made today By Carolyn GramlingFebruary 20, 2026 Climate Snowball Earth might have had a dynamic climate and open seas By Michael MarshallFebruary 19, 2026 Oceans Evolution didn’t wait long after the dinosaurs died By Elie DolginFebruary 13, 2026 Physics Physics Materials Science Quantum Physics Particle Physics Recent posts in Physics Animals Intricate silk helps net-casting spiders ensnare prey in webs By Emily Conover3 hours ago Physics Physicists dream up ‘spacetime quasicrystals’ that could underpin the universe By Emily ConoverFebruary 17, 2026 Physics A precise proton measurement helps put a core theory of physics to the test By Emily ConoverFebruary 11, 2026 Space Space Astronomy Planetary Science Cosmology Recent posts in Space Planetary Science Venus has a massive lava tube By Tom MetcalfeFebruary 23, 2026 Science & Society Project Hail Mary made us wonder how to survive a trip to interstellar space By Tina Hesman SaeyFebruary 20, 2026 Astronomy This inside-out planetary system has astronomers scratching their heads By Adam MannFebruary 12, 2026 News Health & Medicine A lab on wheels is tracking HIV spread in war-torn Ukraine The mobile lab has uncovered a drug-resistant HIV strain that sprung up after the war started Equipped with a lab on wheels, virologist Anna Kovalenko (pictured) sequences HIV in Ukraine to track how the virus is evolving across the besieged country. Anna Kovalenko By Kamal Nahas 5 hours ago Share this:Share Share via email (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Share on X (Opens in new window) X Print (Opens in new window) Print The invasion of Ukraine has stymied healthcare services, allowing diseases such as HIV to spread unchecked. The rate of contagion has been difficult to gauge. But now, using a van equipped with portable research gear, virologist Ganna (Anna) Kovalenko is probing the hidden threat that HIV poses in the war-torn country. HIV has been spreading in Ukraine since the 1990s, mainly through intravenous drug use but also sexual activity, says Kovalenko, of the University of California, Irvine. The Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the expanded siege beginning in 2022 have exacerbated the problem by reducing access to testing, treatment and preventative measures, such as needle exchange programs. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. Even when testing is available, clinicians don’t routinely sequence virus genomes to look for concerning mutations, such as ones that lead to drug resistance. This is partly because sequencing is normally tied to laboratories, often located far from virus hotspots. That’s where a project called the ARTIC network comes in. It aims to bring sequencing tools to remote or inaccessible places, such as during the 2014 Ebola outbreaks in West Africa. Kovalenko, who is part of the network, wondered whether portable sequencing tools could prove fruitful in other emergency scenarios, such as charting HIV spread across Ukraine. So she and her team decided to build a lab in a van. On a test run in August 2024, Kovalenko and her colleagues drove to Lviv, a relatively safe hub in western Ukraine for displaced people that migrated away from the front lines. “We worked during the daytime. Most missile attacks happened at night,” she says. Over three days in the van, many local healthcare workers she met along the way shared with her their frustrations about the conflict. “They describe situations where missile attacks start during the day while they are providing care, and they had to react immediately, leaving everything behind and driving away as fast as possible,” she says. The healthcare workers couldn’t escape without parting ways with their lab equipment. Virologist Anna Kovalenko (middle) and her colleagues linger outside their lab on wheels in Stryiskyi Park in Lviv, Ukraine.Anna Kovalenko Previously, only stationary clinics had been used to monitor HIV spread. Medical doctor Casper Rokx, for example, set up stationary clinics in Lviv to provide HIV care from 2023 to 2025. “We didn’t reach the hard-to-reach populations, at least not as effectively as we wanted that to be,” says Rokx, an HIV specialist at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, Netherlands. In contrast, “vans can just drive to where people are.” During their test drive, Kovalenko’s team sampled blood from 20 HIV-positive people. Kovalenko assumed they wouldn’t find anything interesting with such a small pool of participants, expecting only to demonstrate that the van showed promise. Instead, the researchers discovered an HIV strain that had emerged
A lab on wheels is tracking HIV spread in war-torn Ukraine
