New deadly HIV strain

[Newtonian]

Its now been disovered that a more potent and deadly strain of HIV has been discovered.A 40 yr old gay male in NY,has been found to have this new strain called 3-DCR HIV.Full blown AIDs now sets in within 2-3 months instead of 10 years.Its resistent to 3 out of four treatments,and renders 19 out of 20 drugs useless.

The male had multiple sex partners,which are desperately being traced.His excuse for having unprotected sex with multiple partners ,was his judgement was clouded .He was on the drug crystal methamphetamine.

Very scary,

[Mokele]

Do you have a URL to reference for this? What's the source?

 

-edit: found it myself, the official press release: Here

 

Mokele

[Coral Rhedd]

It was in The New York Times yesterday. Their online site would no doubt give you a source.

[Sayonara]

That's somewhat disturbing.

[Nevermore]

I wonder if it is resistant to the Delta 32 mutation?

[Kylonicus]

Actually, I think it's wonderful.

 

In the short run it may be bad, but if HIV sets in in 2-3 months, it gives people less time to infect others before it becomes obvious that they have the disease.

 

If the disease is resistant to most if not all medication, then it would kill it's host rather than let him/her live and kill others.

 

When you think of the big picture, it's actually a very good thing in comparison to regular HIV.

[Dak]

harsh as it may seem, i agree that a 'cull' of all HIV infected patients would cause less fatalities than allowing the infection to continue as it is.

 

your forgetting though that HIV does not sexually replicate as we do. this tendancy cannot, therefore, be transmitted to all HIV strains, and so represents a new uber-pathogenic HIV strain in addition to the several that already exist.

 

having said that, if it does recombine with other HIV strains and passes on some of its charechteristics, eg its use of CXCR4 as a coreceptor ¹, then that could actually introduse some bitching genes into the HIV gene pool

 

its pathogenisity should hopefully limit its spread. there are apparently three people currently infected¹ - hope the CDC can control it!

 

mokeles link is out of date, so here it is again:

 

original press release

most recent press-release update

 

I wonder if it is resistant to the Delta 32 mutation?

its use of the CXCR4 as a corecepter¹ instead of CCR5 would sujjest that it is (the [math] \Delta [/math]32 mutation only affects CCR5).

 

That's somewhat disturbing.

indeed.

[hyebeh]

i'm hoping that HIV gets more infectious and wipes it self out, bubonic plague style.

either that or it goes out with a whimper like in Andromeda Strain.

 

I am doubtful that science will ever defeat it because it is amazingly adaptive and slippery.

[Dak]

umm, the bubonic plague took about 50,000,000 people with it! i sincerely hope that HIV doesnt go that way.

 

The absolute worst thing that HIV could do is mutate in such a way that it could be transfered by biting insects, although that would probably require one heck of a collection of mutations -- malaria, for example, specifically infects and reproduces in the salival glands of the mosquito in order to infect another individual once the mosquito bites, and i cant see HIV picking up that modus operandi.

 

It seems as if HIV will stick, broadly speaking, to its current desighn, with the odd adaptation here and there to allow it better protection against antiretroviral drugs, better ability to transfer across vaginal walls etc.

I am doubtful that science will ever defeat it because it is amazingly adaptive and slippery.

lots of interesting things are being tried with gene therapy; hopefully, as genetic engeneering teqhniques improve, a cure for HIV will become a possibility.

 

I'll look into how the NY3DCR-HIV outbreak is going and post it up, if anyones interested.

[RICHARDBATTY]

If it mutated in one then it may have done so in others, who knows whats out there now. But was it him that had this strain first?. It may be a strain that lays dormant and spreads a while before becoming realy active. He may have received that strain from someone else thats been spreading it for ages. I agree it may be a good thing though, unless its inocent people that get involved. What of the gay men who fake a normal relationship with a wife and family but have gay partners. Theres a lot of wierdos out there.

[Dak]

strains of HIV that aquire resilience to three classes of antiretroviral drugs are not uncommon, but they usually evolve that way in patients that are actually taking antiretroviral drugs or have cought HIV off of someone who has been taking antiretroviral drugs: the odd thing about this strain is that it appears to have aquired the resilience without exposure to the antiretroviral drugs.

 

I agree it may be a good thing though, unless its inocent people that get involved. What of the gay men who fake a normal relationship with a wife and family but have gay partners. Theres a lot of wierdos out there.

being gay does not make you deserving of contracting HIV.

 

may i also point out at this point that HIV is no longer a desease which is any where near being exclusive to homosexuals and intra-veinouse drug addicts. its common in non-IV-drug-using heterosexuals aswell, and a few strains of HIV seem to be adapted to transmit effectively across the vaginal walls and placenta (HIV-1ME is highly transmittable across the vagina, and HIV-1MC across the vagina and placenta, if i remember correctly).

[Sayonara]

I agree it may be a good thing though, unless its inocent people that get involved.

Can you explain what a "non-innocent person" is in this context?

[hyebeh]

I also think that we should seek to destroy HIV at its source through more widespread education about STD's in general. If we can stop the spread, we help prevent further mutations as well.

[RICHARDBATTY]

A non innocent person would be, the one who goes out and performs activities that put them at risk without taking precautions. Lies about or hides their activities so that associates don't have the opertunity to protect themselves.

[radiohead]

I also think that we should seek to destroy HIV at its source through more widespread education about STD's in general. If we can stop the spread, we help prevent further mutations as well.

 

That will never work. At my school, I think it would be safe to bet at LEAST 1/3 of the kids have had at least one type of sexual relationship. You won't stop the spread. Stopping the spread of HIV would be just as hard as stopping the spread of Christianity. As said is an earlier post, HIV will end up killing itself. It could be in a few years, it could be the day before the sun expands into a red giant and kills us all. But that is the ONLY way HIV will stop.

[Rasori]

ONLY way? I bet that sometime well before the sun exploding and, assuming it doesn't kill itself on its own within the next 100 years or so, we will probably have some sort of injected nanobots that can destroy it.

 

Give it 250 years to be safe, but I'd bet that 100 is enough at our current rate of development.

[Dak]

i still think that an improvement in our understanding of genetic engineering would allow a cure. i mean, all you have to do is put in some kind of enzyme which recognises and removes the HIV genes, or binds-to and deactivates the HIV genes, or simply kills any CD4+ cell which is infected with HIV.

 

the problem is actually doing the above, but when we're better at genetic engineering (which, after all, is a relatively new field) it should be no problem)

[radiohead]

ONLY way? I bet that sometime well before the sun exploding and' date=' assuming it doesn't kill itself on its own within the next 100 years or so, we will probably have some sort of injected nanobots that can destroy it.

 

Give it 250 years to be safe, but I'd bet that 100 is enough at our current rate of development.[/quote']

 

Well, I was not thinking about that. Yes. With our given rate of development, we could find a cure or somehing along those lines.

[Sayonara]

A non innocent person would be, the one who goes out and performs activities that put them at risk without taking precautions. Lies about or hides their activities so that associates don't have the opertunity to protect themselves.

So you mean someone in a low risk group, rather than implying some kind of cavalier attitude that probably doesn't apply.

[RICHARDBATTY]

Call it what you will I can't be bothered. EDIT: Sorry I did mean some one in a low risk group. The example I used was the only example I could think of at the time which would result in the circumstances where a person in a low risk group could be unwittingly exposed to a high risk situation. The use of the word weirdo may have offended some but as I have a family I find it strange that a person would put their family at risk in this way. However this is only my opinion.

[Sayonara]

I know what you mean, it's just "innocent" suggests an opposing state of "guilty", which could easily start a humungous flame war if people don't pay close enough attention

[RICHARDBATTY]

Then I apologize and thank you for that explanation. I will try to be more carefull how I put things in future. Sorry to all for any confusion.

[Dak]

I wonder if it is resistant to the Delta 32 mutation?

its use of the CXCR4 as a corecepter1 instead of CCR5 would sujjest that it is

sorry' date=' that should have read 'its use of CXCR4 [b']aswell as[/b] CCR5'¹

[Kylonicus]

I have a semi-easy idea on how to induce a cure to HIV,

 

Make a parasite, give it the CD4 and the CD5 receptor, through the use of microbiology and microevolutionary manipulation, alter it to have a very high internal cellular temperature. Then when the HIV attaches to it, the HIV will die, due to the internal temperature of the parasite being to high.

 

Or make it where the parasite essentially has some sort of other genetic malady which makes it where the HIV can't effectively penetrate and effect it.

 

The trick is of course, to make sure the parasite has 100 genetic immunity, otherwise, if 1 piece of HIV survives, then it will slowly progressively getting more and more resistant to the parasite. But hopefully, through the use of such a parasite we could develop a stronger, and stronger method of controlling HIV.

 

Just a thought.

[Deified]

And how exactly to you suggest we get this parasite into every human body in the world? Finding a cure is one thing, making that cure affordable and available even in third world countries is another thing entirely.