HIV 'relatives' cause pandemic in African monkeys

A virus that is related to HIV is spreading on a large scale in African gorillas. The culprit infecting them could be chimpanzees, the French scientists announced.

A monkey has been infected with HIV (Photo: lostbrain)

HIV has 3 strains: M, N and O. In which, M is the most common and has appeared on a global scale. Only a few cases of N infection have been detected in Cameroon. The number of people infected with O strains accounts for about 1% of HIV / AIDS patients in Cameroon and surrounding countries.

Martine Peeters, a virologist at Montpellier University (France) and his colleagues examined blood samples of several hundred gorillas and chimpanzees in dense forests in Cameroon. In these places, people still hunt gorillas to make medicine and food. Analysis of blood samples showed that these animals were infected with SIV - the " relative" of HIV.

The SIV strain found in these gorillas has a structure similar to the O strain of HIV. Virus infected people live in an area of ​​400 km radius, so scientists believe that SIV has spread on a large scale and become a pandemic.

This is the first gorilla survey to see if they are infected with SIV. " We detected SIV in gorillas but the origin of the disease is still chimp. But we do not know in gorillas and chimpanzees which species have transmitted the virus to humans ," Peeters said.

About 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV / AIDS. Scientists claim that two of the three human AIDS viruses are derived from simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), but the origin of the third strain has not been found.

Scientists believe that human beings are infected with HIV when killing SIV-infected sperms as food. About 25 million people have died from HIV / AIDS since the virus was discovered nearly 25 years ago.

The cause of gorillas and chimpanzees infected with SIV is still unknown because gorillas are herbivores and gorilla mating with chimpanzees is rarely seen.

Viet Linh