Missing AIDS Link Found in Chimps
Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
July 22, 2009 -- Scientists believe they have found a "missing link" in the evolution of the virus that causes AIDS. It bridges the gap between the infection that does no harm to most monkeys and the one that kills millions of people. That link is a virus that is killing chimpanzees in the wild at a disturbingly high rate, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature.
Chimpanzees are the first primate besides man shown to get sick in the wild in significant numbers from a virus related to HIV. Chimps are also man's closest relative among primates.
And chimps are already endangered.
But the discovery of the disease killing chimps may help doctors come up with better treatments or a workable vaccine for humans, experts said.
The monkey version of the virus that causes AIDS is called simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), but most apes and monkeys that have it show no symptoms or illness. So "if we could figure out why the monkeys don't get sick, perhaps we could apply that to people," said study lead author Beatrice Hahn, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The nine-year study of chimps in their natural wild habitat at Gombe National Park in Tanzania found chimps infected with SIV had a death rate 10 to 16 times higher than uninfected chimps. And necropsies of dead infected chimps showed unusually low counts of T-cell white blood proteins that are just like the levels found in humans with AIDS, Hahn said in a phone interview.
And when scientists looked at the particular strain, they found that it was the closest relative possible to the virus that first infected humans.
Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
July 22, 2009 -- Scientists believe they have found a "missing link" in the evolution of the virus that causes AIDS. It bridges the gap between the infection that does no harm to most monkeys and the one that kills millions of people. That link is a virus that is killing chimpanzees in the wild at a disturbingly high rate, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature.
Chimpanzees are the first primate besides man shown to get sick in the wild in significant numbers from a virus related to HIV. Chimps are also man's closest relative among primates.
And chimps are already endangered.
But the discovery of the disease killing chimps may help doctors come up with better treatments or a workable vaccine for humans, experts said.
The monkey version of the virus that causes AIDS is called simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), but most apes and monkeys that have it show no symptoms or illness. So "if we could figure out why the monkeys don't get sick, perhaps we could apply that to people," said study lead author Beatrice Hahn, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The nine-year study of chimps in their natural wild habitat at Gombe National Park in Tanzania found chimps infected with SIV had a death rate 10 to 16 times higher than uninfected chimps. And necropsies of dead infected chimps showed unusually low counts of T-cell white blood proteins that are just like the levels found in humans with AIDS, Hahn said in a phone interview.
And when scientists looked at the particular strain, they found that it was the closest relative possible to the virus that first infected humans.
Damn is this real??? That's bananas (no pun intended)
