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Source of AIDS virus definitely African chimps, say scientists

TWENTY-FIVE years after the first AIDS cases were confirmed, the origin of the virus that causes the disease has finally been traced to wild chimpanzees living in the forests of south-east Cameroon.

Scientists researching the evolutionary history of the deadly virus discovered that the chimp version, SIVcpz, which is found among animals living south of the Sanaga River, bore a striking similarity to HIV-1, the strain which caused a pandemic of AIDS among humans.

It is thought that someone in rural Cameroon was bitten by a chimp or was cut while butchering one, and became infected with the ape virus before passing it to someone else.

The Sanaga River has long been a commercial waterway for transporting the likes of hardwood and ivory to more urban areas, and, eventually, an infected person made it to Kinshasa, in the nearby Congo, where what is now known to be the first recorded case of the virus in humans appeared.

Professor Paul Sharp, an evolutionary geneticist at Nottingham University, who worked on the project with colleagues from the United States and France, said: "We are interested in how the virus has evolved. In many ways, we think this is the last piece in the puzzle as to where the virus came from.

"One reason for being interested in chimps is they don't get sick and, obviously, they are very closely related to us."

He said it was thought that the animals simply lived with the presence of the virus in their immune cells - it is only when the body tries to attack them that AIDS occurs.

Prof Sharp said: "The virus infects the cells of the immune system. If you destroy the cells that contain this virus, you destroy your own cells - AIDS is caused by a lack of immune cells.

"If you could somehow ignore them, leave them alone, you wouldn't get AIDS, and eventually the virus might destroy the cell itself. As long as the virus isn't too busy, it's not a problem."

Writing in today's edition of the journal Science, researchers said that up to 35 per cent of chimps in some communities had been infected with SIV, but in others there was no sign of the disease at all.

Despite the close genetic similarity between chimps and humans, SIV does not cause an AIDS-like illness. It is hoped further study will reveal why - and whether this might help to treat people with HIV.

It is thought HIV-1 originated about 75 years ago. However, the first human known to be infected with the virus was a man from Kinshasa, who had his blood stored in 1959 as part of a medical study, decades before scientists knew HIV even existed.

Dr Beatrice Hahn, of Alabama University in the US, who is also a member of the research team, said: "How many different transmission events occurred between that initial hunter and this virus making it to Kinshasa, I don't know.

"It could have been one, it could have been ten, it could have been 100. Eventually, it ended up in an urban area, and that's where it really got going."

She said the researchers, who collected some 1,300 samples of chimp faeces for genetic testing, were convinced that the strain of SIV found in south-eastern Cameroon was the origin of HIV.

source

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AtlanticBlue99

I thought some sick freak had sex with a monkey!

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Rusteh

so how much longer till there is a cure? cuz we need to get our whores cleaned up.

!

well 25 years to figure out where it came from, maybe another 25 before there is a remedy, or some sort of vax

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UncleBacon

if you have the source it should be easy to figure out a cure

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you look like a retarded slingblade

Homer

now thats about the most fucked up thing you've said yet , when i feel it's been men spreding it more them women.

Rusteh

lol...well aids is more prominent amongst individuals who participate in anal sex if I remember right....so yeah guys on guys probably caused most of the problems.

Mrs Behavin

Whats really sad is kids that are born with HIV.

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hhayes

:agree

Homer

how sad is it that people are dieing of HIV but are still fucking and having kids with HIV :tard

AtlanticBlue99

They have a right to have kids, but legally, a person with excelled HIV must notify their partner before unprotected sex in most states

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"Smokey Mountains"

Homer

yeah i know. that still doesn't make it right.

White2000GT

Well, I guess all the conspiracy theorists were wrong. I remember hearing some people say HIV was created in a lab as some sort of biological warfare test or something and was accidentally let loose. Kinda like the Tuskegee experiment in a way I suppose. Only the Tuskegee experiment wasn't accidental.
Has anyone ever read the book The Hot Zone? That is one seriously scary book. It is amazing how something as small as a virus can wreak total havoc in the animal kingdom.