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Topic subjectRE: AIDS in Africa: Conspiracy Theories?
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=17561&mesg_id=17621
17621, RE: AIDS in Africa: Conspiracy Theories?
Posted by guest, Tue Feb-13-01 12:01 PM
Interesting article from NYT, in light of present discussion......
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February 7, 2001
Mutation That Slows H.I.V. May Play a Role in Hepatitis C
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
HICAGO, Feb. 6 — Five years ago, scientists discovered that some people had a genetic mutation in their cells that could either protect them against infection from the AIDS virus or significantly slow the course of AIDS.

Today, German scientists reported an odd twist to the mutation story. At the eighth annual retrovirus meeting here, they reported evidence suggesting that the mutation could have a negative effect for people infected with the hepatitis C virus, which causes potentially fatal liver disease.

Further research is needed. But the findings could have potential importance in the epidemiology of hepatitis C infections and the development of anti-H.I.V. drugs directed at the mutation, Dr. Rainer Woitas, the head of the German team from the University of Bonn, said in an interview.

The mutation involves the deletion of part of a gene on the surface of cells. The gene, CCR5, is one of the major receptor sites for the entry of H.I.V.

About 1 percent of Caucasians inherit a double dose of the mutation that usually confers resistance to H.I.V. infection. People who inherit only one dose of the mutation and become H.I.V.-infected often take about two years longer to develop AIDS than infected people without the mutation.

Dr. Woitas, a specialist in internal medicine with a long interest in hepatitis C, came to his findings in an unusual way. After other scientists in the United States and Europe discovered the mutation's effect in H.I.V. in 1996, Dr. Woitas theorized that the mutation might also play a role in hepatitis C.

So he and his colleagues conducted tests to determine the frequency of the mutation among four groups. One group of 153 people had the hepatitis C virus only. A second group of 102 people had H.I.V. only. A third group of 130 people had both infections. A fourth group of 102 people were blood donors with no known infections who were included for purposes of a scientific control.

Dr. Woitas's team confirmed the finding that the double dose form of the mutation protected against H.I.V. infection. But 12 of the 153, or 7.8 percent, in the hepatitis-C-only group had the mutation, and statistical tests showed it was three times more common than expected.

People with the mutation also had levels of hepatitis C virus in their blood about four times higher than in those without the mutation.

People with higher levels of a virus in the blood often fare worse than those with lower levels. But because the German studies were not developed to measure outcomes, Dr. Woitas said that additional studies were needed to document whether people with the mutation fared worse, and that they were under way.

Dr. Woitas theorized that the mutation interfered with the immune system in some unknown way to have an adverse effect on hepatitis C and the protective effect on H.I.V.

The study also led Dr. Woitas to speculate that the immune system might in some cases successfully defend against the hepatitis C virus and lose the antibodies. If so, he said, scientists would need to develop a new test to determine who had been infected with hepatitis C, since current tests screen for the infection by using antibodies to the virus.

Dr. David Ho, the head of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan, said that if an experimental drug was developed to counter the mutation and tested in humans, scientists would have to screen for hepatitis C infection among the recipients to avoid possibly worsening the liver infection.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also announced a campaign developed to "break the back" of the AIDS epidemic by cutting the number of new infections in half by 2005, largely by identifying Americans who carry H.I.V. but do not know it.

The effort, announced today, is based on the fact that most AIDS infections are spread by people who do not realize they have H.I.V.

The agency believes that if these people knew they were infected, they would be more careful to protect others, and they would also take AIDS drugs that would probably make them less likely to transmit the virus.

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company


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