Oxford researchers announced Thursday the discovery of a very deadly HIV type that had lurked in the Netherlands for decades, but because of the effectiveness of modern care, it was “no reason for alarms.”
Their analysis, published Thursday in the journal “Science,” shows that patients infected with what they call “VB variants” have 3.5 to 5.5 times higher than viruses in their blood than those infected with other variants, as well as more Many immune systems that fade quickly.
However, this study also found that after starting treatment, individuals with VB variants have a recovery of a similar immune system and survive with individuals with other HIV variants.
“There is no cause of alarm with this new virus variant,” said Oxford Epidemiologist Chris Wymant, the main author on paper, in an interview with AFP.
Variants likely to arise in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the Netherlands, according to researchers, but began to decline around 2010.
Because modern intervention seems to still function in variants, the research team believes that the widespread HIV treatment in the Netherlands does not contribute to the evolution of viruses, and detection and early treatment is the most important.
“Our findings emphasize the importance of world health organization guidance that individuals at risk of acquiring HIV have access to regular testing to enable early diagnosis, followed by immediate care,” said Co-writer Christophe Fraser, in Oxford’s press release, in a press release, in a press release , In press releases, in the press release announced the findings.
This work also supports the theory that viruses can evolve becoming more ferocious, ideas that have been hypothesized in which some real-world examples have been found.
The Delta variant of the Coronavirus novel is another latest example.
The discovery of the HIV variant hence must “be a warning that we should not be too confident about saying the virus will only evolve to be lighter,” Wymant to AFP said.
In total, the team found 109 people infected with VB variants, with only four living outside the Netherlands, but still in Western Europe.
– 500 mutations – HIV viruses continue to grow, in such a way that every infected person has a slightly different version.
VB variants, however, are found to have more than 500 mutations.
“Finding a new variant is normal, but find new variants with unusual nature not – especially one with an increase in virulence,” Wyman explained.
The research team first identified VB variants in 17 HIV positive individuals by parsing broad data from the Beehive Project, data collection and analysis initiatives in Europe and Uganda.
Because 15 of 17 comes from the Netherlands, they then studied data from 6,700 HIV-positive Dutch individuals, identifying 92 others.
The earliest appearance of the VB variant in their data was found in someone diagnosed in 1992 which has a variant’s initial version, and the latest in 2014.
Other researchers have found other individuals with variants diagnosed after 2014.
Doctors usually measure HIV damage from the immune system by monitoring the decline in CD4 T cells, which are targeted by the HIV and Pivotal virus to protect the body against infection.
In patients infected with VB variants, the CD4 decline occurred twice as soon as other variants, “placing them at the risk of developing AIDS much faster,” the researchers said.
In addition to the increasing impact on the immune system, the team also found the VB variant to become more transmitting.
They came to the conclusion after comparing various versions of VB variants taken from infected patients.
The fact that they are very similar shows that the virus passes quickly to other people before it can accumulate a lot of mutations.
– ‘Critical’ to diagnose and take care of the beginning – “Because the VB variant causes a decrease in the power of a faster immune system, this makes it important so that individuals are diagnosed early and start treatments as soon as possible,” said the press statement.
“This limit the amount of time HIV can damage the individual immune system and endanger their health,” Fraser added.
Fraser is also the main researcher of the Beehive project, which was launched in 2014 to collect data on how mutations in the HIV virus can cause various severity among patients.
These differences have previously been estimated mostly related to the strength of the individual immune system.
The researchers said they could not identify which genetic mutations in the VB variant caused their virulence, but they hoped that the future studies would be able.
