New Aggressive HIV Strain Detected In Cuba

A new HIV strain in a few patients in Cuba appears to be much more aggressive and may develop into AIDS within 3 years of infection. Researchers said this progression happens so fast of which treatment with antiretroviral drugs can come too late.

Without treatment, HIV infection normally takes 5 to 10 years to turn into AIDS, in accordance with Anne-Mieke Vandamme, a medical professor in Belgium's University of Leuvan. In accordance with the study, published in the journal EBioMedicine, Vandamme was alerted towards the new aggressive strain of HIV through Cuban health officials who wanted to discover what was happening.

"So this group of patients that progressed very quickly, they were all just lately infected, " Vandamme told Voice of America. "And we realize that because they was HIV negative tested one or maybe a maximum two years before. "

None of the sufferers had received treatment for that virus, and all of the patients infected with this mutated strain of HIV developed AIDS within 3 years.

While fast progression regarding HIV to AIDS is usually the consequence of the patient's weak immune system rather than this particular subtype of HIV, what's happening in Cuba differs.

"Here we had the variant of HIV that we found only in the group which was progressing fast. Not in another two groups. We focused in on this variant [and] tried to discover what was different. And we saw it had been a recombinant of 3 different subtypes. "

The newest variant, named CRF19, is a mixture of HIV subtypes A, D and G.

HIV usually infects cells by attaching itself to what is called the co-receptor, and the transition to AIDS usually occurs once the virus switches -- after several years -- from co-receptor CCR5 to co-receptor CXCR4. The newest strain makes the switch considerably faster.

The variant has become observed in Africa, but in too few cases to be totally studied. Researchers said the strain is more widespread within Cuba.

Even though the aggressive form of HIV responds to the majority of antiretroviral drugs, people may not understand they have AIDS until it is too late for treatment to do any good. Vandamme said it's important for people having unprotected sex with multiple partners to become tested for HIV early and frequently.

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HIV's Capacity To Cause AIDS Is Weakening Over Time, Research Finds

Swift evolution of HIV, the human being immunodeficiency virus, is slowing its capacity to cause AIDS, according to a study in excess of 2, 000 females in Africa.

Scientists said the study suggests a fewer virulent HIV could be one of many factors contributing to your turning of this deadly pandemic, eventually leading to the end regarding AIDS.

"Overall we are bringing down the capacity regarding  HIV to help cause AIDS and so quickly, " Philip Goulder, a professor from Oxford University who led the research, said in a new telephone interview.

"But it might be overstating it to mention HIV has lost its potency -- it is still a virus you wouldn't wish to have. "

Some 35 million people now have HIV and also AIDS has killed all around 40 million people because it began spreading 30 years back.

But campaigners mentioned on Monday that for the 1st time in the epidemic's historical past, the annual quantity of new HIV infections is lower than the amount of HIV positive people being included with those receiving treatment method, meaning a important tipping point has become reached in decreasing deaths from AIDS.

Goulder's team guided their study within Botswana and also south Africa -- a couple countries badly attack by AIDS -- exactly where they enrolled in excess of 2, 000 females with HIV.

First they looked over whether the interaction between body's natural immune system response and HIV leads to the virus growing to be less virulent or capable to cause disease.

Previous study on HIV has demonstrated that people having a gene known as HLA-B*57 can gain from a protective effect against HIV as well as progress more gradually than usual to AIDS.

The researchers found that within Botswana, HIV has evolved to adjust to HLA-B*57 more than in South Africa, so patients no more benefited from this protective effect. But they also found the price of this adaptation for HIV is usually a reduced ability to replicate -- creating it less virulent.

The scientists subsequently analyzed the impact on HIV virulence from the wide use regarding AIDS drugs. Utilizing a mathematical model, they found which treating the sickest HIV sufferers -- whose immune systems happen to be weakened by the infection -- accelerates this evolution of variants of HIV having a weaker ability to replicate.

"HIV adaptation to the most efficient immune responses we are able to make against it comes in a significant cost to its ability to replicate, " Goulder mentioned. "Anything we are capable of doing to increase the pressure on HIV in this manner may allow scientists to relieve the destructive strength of HIV over time. "

This research was published on Monday within the journal Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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