Aggressive HIV Strain Advances Onslaught Of AIDS

Scientists have examined an HI-Virus which is resistant against most drugs and leads faster that other forms of the virus to the low immunity disease AIDS.

In February the case of an HIV-infection was revealed in New York which led exceptionally rapidly to AIDS and didn’t respond to common therapies. The local health officials warned of the infection risk. The have now published the results of an examination of this aggressive form of HI-Virus.

In the magazine “The Lancet” Martin Markowitz and colleagues report, that the resistance against drugs as well as the rapid development of AIDS have already been observed in several other cases. But it was unique, that the now examined strain of the agent HIV-1 has both characteristics, said the scientists from Aaron Diamond Aids Research Center in New York.

Genetic-analyses showed that the viruses were all well equipped to afflict the cells of the human immune system. They can bind to two different receptors, reports the New York Times. In the first step of the infection most other strains of HI-Viruses can only dock to one receptor-type of immune cells.

The now examined viruses were found in a man in his late 40ies, who was infected with the disease between four and (at most) twenty months before the outbreak. In most cases it lasts about ten years until low immunity is revealed after an infection.

In May 2003, this patient had been tested negatively. He started to have unprotected sexual intercourse with different partners in Autumn 2004 while under the influence of the drug methamphetamine.

Scientists believe methamphetamine might favour the multiplication of the viruses in afflicted cells. The theory is supported by tests of cats infected with FIV (feline immunodeficiency), which is similar to HIV.

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