The last big viral pandemic was HIV back in the 1980s. Despite having effective therapies and it being harder to catch a blood borne / sexually transmitted virus than a respiratory virus we have failed to eliminate HIV and still just under a million people a year die from HIV infection.
Researchers from Oxford university have identified a new variant of HIV. Like omicron this variant has acquired multiple novel mutations probably having arisen in one or a few individuals. Like omicron it is far more transmissible producing higher viral loads, but unlike omicron is more virulent with more rapid progression to AIDS. Luckily it has no new drug resistance mutations, and public health interventions for HIV control remain effective.
This isolate is effectively limited to the Netherlands at present. The worry would be if it spread to e.g. parts of Africa or Haiti where there was limited access to health care and HIV transmission remains relatively high.
The paper
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk1688
The press release
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-02-04...ed-netherlands
The learning point is that viruses can become more virulent with time and there are no fixed rules about what random mutation and evolutionary pressures will lead to.
Researchers from Oxford university have identified a new variant of HIV. Like omicron this variant has acquired multiple novel mutations probably having arisen in one or a few individuals. Like omicron it is far more transmissible producing higher viral loads, but unlike omicron is more virulent with more rapid progression to AIDS. Luckily it has no new drug resistance mutations, and public health interventions for HIV control remain effective.
This isolate is effectively limited to the Netherlands at present. The worry would be if it spread to e.g. parts of Africa or Haiti where there was limited access to health care and HIV transmission remains relatively high.
The paper
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk1688
The press release
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-02-04...ed-netherlands
The learning point is that viruses can become more virulent with time and there are no fixed rules about what random mutation and evolutionary pressures will lead to.
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/1qkw2tY
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