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Scientists searching for the origin of HIV, the global pandemic infecting more than 40 million people, believe they have finally tracked its original source to two colonies of chimpanzees in a corner of Cameroon.
The finding represents the culmination of a 10-year hunt for the source of the pandemic and provides a crucial link between HIV, which causes Aids in humans, and the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a strikingly similar virus that infects monkeys and chimpanzees. Researchers believe that south-east Cameroon is where the virus first jumped from chimpanzees to humans before HIV infection began spreading among people as far back as the 1930s.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk...
Researchers believe the virus infected humans some time before the 1930s and was gradually spread by river travel. All of the rivers in Cameroon run into the Sangha, which joins the Congo river running past Kinshasa.
Trade along the routes could have spread the virus, which slowly built up in the human population.
Identifying the source of the HIV pandemic is more than filling in a missing link in the disease's progression. Understanding how the virus infects chimpanzees, and why it does not appear to cause disease in such a similar genetic species, could unveil useful clues about how the virus works in humans and which crucial changes happened to the virus when it made the leap to humans.
Originally posted by Xeven
Wow I had heard this nearly 20 years ago.. Did they just recycle old information?
1930's. Would that cover the time when Germany's scientists were messing with everything (including viruses)?
Originally posted by bsl4doc
Posted this already on 5/25
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