Ancient Enemy from the Deep of Time

Recently, I have written here about a world day of fight against AIDS and about a symbol of this fight. Also recently I have found some news about age of HIV on the web. Here it is.

Researchers at Stanford University report discovering an ancient predecessor to HIV that evolved in primates millions of years earlier than previously thought.

The researchers studied gray mouse lemurs, native to Madagascar, and discovered they carried several lentiviruses, a family of pathogens that include HIV and the simian version of HIV common among other African monkeys. A genetic analysis and geographical studies showed the lemurs carried the lentiviruses for at least 14 million years and possibly as long as 85 million years.

Scientists had previously believed that the simian version of HIV has existed for fewer than 1 million years.

"[This discovery] points to the direction for future research, that we need to establish how widespread these viruses are," Robert Gifford, an infectious disease researcher with Stanford, and lead author of the study, told The Guardian. Many simians, such as mandrills, sooty mangabeys, and green monkeys, carry lentiviruses without getting ill.

That knowledge could be used to protect humans from transmission of other HIV-like viruses still confined to wildlife and pave the way for treatments or vaccines for HIV that target portions of lentiviruses that have not mutated or evolved over millions of years, the researchers say.



(Sources: Wikipedia.org, Gaywired.com, YouTube.com)