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The discovery of a more dangerous variant of the HI virus shows that pandemic viruses are not necessarily becoming milder: the so-called VB mutant has a higher viral load, is more easily transmitted and can cause more damage in the body.
The HI virus also mutates – and, as it turns out, not necessarily for the better, as British researchers write in the journal Science. (Pictured: HI viruses under the transmission electron microscope)
Wikimedia Commons/CDC/PD
The team discovered a previously unknown, more contagious variant of the HI virus in the Netherlands.
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Researchers have identified a particularly virulent variant of HIV in around 100 people in the Netherlands.
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Compared to other variants, the so-called VB variant, if left untreated, leads to a significantly higher viral load and damages the immune system of those affected twice as quickly.
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Nevertheless, the scientists see no reason for concern.
In a long-term study, researchers have discovered a previously unknown, more contagious variant of the HI virus in the Netherlands. The so-called VB variant of HIV-1 has a viral load that is around 3.5 to 5.5 times higher, is easier to transmit and has the potential to cause greater damage to the immune system, write the scientists at the British University of Oxford in the journal «Science». However, two German experts do not see the danger of the new variant spreading quickly.
According to the study, there is probably no greater danger for infected people undergoing treatment: following the start of treatment, VB patients had a similar course to other patients. The results make it all the more important that people at risk of getting HIV have access to regular testing to enable early diagnosis and treatment, it said. “This limits the time that HIV can damage the immune system and endanger health,” said one of the Oxford researchers involved, Christophe Fraser, according to a statement.
«Another piece of the puzzle for our understanding of the evolution of HIV»
The VB variant was the first to be named in a long-term monitoring project Beehive discovered collecting and analyzing samples from Europe and Uganda. 17 cases of the variant were noticed, 15 of them from the Netherlands. Tests of thousands more patients tested in the Netherlands found 92 more infected with the VB variant. This is said to have spread throughout the country during the 1980s and 1990s. According to the researchers, however, the spread has slowed down once more since around 2010.
The study is “another piece of the puzzle for our understanding of the evolution of HIV,” said virologist Maximilian Muenchoff from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich to the German Press Agency. However, the expert has little concern that the variant might give new impetus to the HIV epidemic. “Although the effects are statistically significant, they are rather secondary in the broader epidemiological context.” You can also see that from the fact that the variant has been circulating for decades without having displaced other variants. For treated patients, the therapy and a healthy lifestyle are more important than the virological factors anyway.
The virologist Hans-Georg Kräusslich from the University of Heidelberg does not expect that the discovered variant will lead to a faster progression of the HIV infection to an AIDS disease, and said the dpa: “In view of the long period and the very small Number speaks nothing for a rapid spread. » This is also how the HIV researcher Joel O. Wertheim sees it. As he writes in the journal “Science”, VB does not represent a public health crisis. It can be easily controlled with proven measures.
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