Posted on 03/18/2005 6:21:08 AM PST by Mother Abigail
March 18, 2005
Rare AIDS Strain Is Very Aggressive, Study Says
By MARC SANTORA
A genetic study of a rare strain of AIDS that led New York City health officials to issue a public warning last month will be published today, allowing experts from around the world to more accurately evaluate the scientific basis of the alert.
The study, appearing in The Lancet, a medical journal, shows the virus to be resistant to nearly all licensed drugs and particularly aggressive. Most of the study's details were disclosed earlier during an AIDS conference in Boston. The report is based on the work of a team of researchers from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan led by Dr. David D. Ho and Dr. Martin Markowitz.
There has been debate about the importance of the discovery of the rare strain since the city went public with the case on Feb. 11, with some scientists saying that a single case did not warrant much concern. Some gay activist groups also reacted skeptically, saying public health officials exploited the case to scare gay men into practicing safe sex.
The City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has repeatedly defended its decision, but has remained silent about how its investigation is proceeding. For a month, investigators have been working to track down the sexual partners of the man infected with the strain, a difficult job because he does not know the names of many of his partners.
Health workers took more than a dozen blood samples from people believed to have had sex with the man, according to one official involved in the case. They are testing those samples to determine if the virus was transmitted to others, but testing is not complete, the official said.
The case involves a gay man in his late 40's who tested positive for H.I.V. in December. The virus was resistant to nearly every drug treatment and progressed rapidly from infection to fully developed AIDS.
The man last tested negative for H.I.V. in May 2003 and was said to have engaged in unprotected sex with multiple partners in the fall of 2004 while he was using crystal methamphetamine. The man had developed AIDS by January, meaning that he had been infected for as long as 20 months or, according to the scientists familiar with how the virus progresses, as little as 4 months.
On average, it takes 10 years to develop AIDS after infection, but some people develop AIDS after about 20 years, and others within a year or so.
Drug resistance and rapid progression of the virus have both been seen at different times, but the intersection of the two is what the scientists found alarming. "The public health ramifications of such a case are great," the scientists wrote in the journal. Specifically, the genetic study of the virus shows it to be particularly effective at penetrating the human immune cells by being able to latch onto its target at two separate places, called receptors, on the cell's surface. Typically, the virus latches onto only one receptor.
In an accompanying editorial, The Lancet commented, "This case serves as a reminder that H.I.V. remains a frighteningly versatile foe, one that can mutate to escape immune attack or to acquire drug resistance with surprising speed."
Dr. Gary Blick said that, in a preliminary study, he found epidemiological and genetic links between the virus strains infecting both men.
He also said the men, who were both already HIV-positive, apparently had sex with each other. But he cautioned, that does not necessarily mean that's when transmission of the drug-resistant strain occurred.
"The two patients appear to have had unsafe sex together during a night of sex and drugs last fall at a club in Manhattan," Blick said, "but this does not by any means confirm direct person-to-person transmission of HIV between the two individuals."
A spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene declined to comment on any possible link between Blick's patient and the New York case. "Our investigation is continuing and progressing," Sandra Mullen, the spokeswoman, said. The new strain of the virus that both men tested positive for is known as multi-drug resistant HIV, or MDR-HIV.
Not only is it drug-resistant, but it can progress from HIV to full-blown AIDS in a matter of months, said Mary Unfricht, a registered nurse and coordinator of the Mother to Child HIV/AIDS Prevention Program at Bridgeport Hospital. That progression normally takes years, she said.
"It's more aggressive and progresses to full-blown AIDS much faster," Unfricht said. Blick is worried that some HIV-positive people have become complacent. He fears they believe there is no need to practice safe sex if both partners are already HIV-positive.
In fact, he said, someone infected with a drug-resistant HIV strain can pass it to someone
Exploiting the case!? How selfish are these people!? As if we didn't have any doubt before that they put their sexual pleasure/behavior above everything else.
The data in today's Lancet really just makes public the data discussed by ViroLogic over a month ago. There is more detail in the Lancet paper and some sequence data represented in a phylogenetic tree, but the paper in Lancet simply restates last months information.
3-DCR NYC is unique and it has a wild type replication capacity yet is resistant to the three major classes of anti-HIV drugs. These properties were determined in in vitro assays and are not host dependent.
Issues relating to host factors affecting progression as well as transmissibility of the virus remain open.
However, the combination of the dual receptor usage, normal replication capacity, and drug resistance in one virus is new, and raises the possibility that this is a novel and deadly recombinant formed via dual infection
"some scientists saying that a single case did not warrant much concern."
"some scientists" conveniently forget about "patient zero", who they identified as having brought this scourge to America through his filthy sexual practices. Just one "case", indeed!
This is the new CIA contrived edition. The first one wasn't as effective as the government wanted. </sarc>
"The two patients appear to have had unsafe sex together during a night of sex and drugs last fall at a club in Manhattan," Blick said, "but this does not by any means confirm direct person-to-person transmission of HIV between the two individuals."
Well, what will it take to convince to convince you?
If it becomes agressive enough it will solve the problems it has created.
No, more likely it occurred when they were talking on the phone with each other.
Excuse me? Would this effing quack please turn in his medical license right now?
Is there any wonder with this drug ridden, harsh lifestyle that the viruses they are fighting did not adapt?
Oh yeah, I waiting for the media blitz, led by the MSM, telling the public that this new virus is coming to a middle class suburb near you.
Why is Bush doing this to us? :)
Not an expert in this area, but I read that a disease that progresses this rapidly will burn itself out quicker because the infected show sign much earlier and are less able to spread it. It's the type that lies silently dormant that allow for redistributing itself on a grand scale.
"saying public health officials exploited the case to scare gay men into practicing safe sex." - And the problem is?????
Aha! I knew it! And did you notice that this new and improved CIA strain came out during another Republcan administration? Just like the first one came out under Reagan?
Faggots beware! More anally-injected death syndrome on the way to a bathhouse near you.
you got that right
I have noticed a lot more homeless people and contrails too.
I cannot fathom how diabolical, evil and utterly selfish these people are.
Sane humans would not make remarks such as this.
I thought this "new strain" was debunked last month when they discovered that the facts had been altered to produce the sensationalism.
At this point, AIDS could be controlled so easily, were just too busy worrying about being politically correct to effect any real change.
So, just wait till it goes airbourne, then we'll ALL wish we could have done something about it sooner.
This is just more proof that we should have quarantined all the HIV-positive people starting about 25 years ago. We could have used old Army bases and it would have saved the rest of us a lot of money and expense.
Gee, AIDs used to be rare, too. Now it's all over the dang place. So soon this will be.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.