"Science": More dangerous HIV mutants have emerged!

Since it was first identified in the 1980s, AIDS has rapidly become a global public health threat

In recent years, antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been able to effectively control the level of HIV in infected persons; cases of functional cure of AIDS and the realization of "self-healing" have also appeared from time to time

At the same time, people are also worried about another problem

Now, that fear has become a reality

The study is based on data from the Linking the Epidemiology and Evolution of HIV in Europe (BEEHIVE) project, an ongoing project to reveal the relationship between the HIV genome and disease severity in samples from Europe and Uganda.

Such a high-density distribution caught the research team's attention

Further research on the mutant revealed that the VB mutant was more virulent and infectious, as had been feared

In the host, the viral load is 3.

The host CD4+ T cells decreased rapidly, and the number decreased nearly twice as fast as in ordinary HIV infection;

The VB mutant did not change much when transmitted from person to person, suggesting that it spreads faster and is more contagious

But the good news is that after treatment, the immune system recovers and survives similarly to other HIV strains

▲The phylogenetic tree shows the relationship between the VB mutant strain and other HIV strains (Image source: Reference [1])

Lead author of the study, Dr Chris Wymant from the University of Oxford, said: "Before this study, we had known that the genetic properties of HIV are associated with its virulence, suggesting that the evolution of novel mutant strains can make a difference in human health.

At present, there are still a lot of unsolved mysteries in this new mutant

But at least, the timeline of the emergence and evolution of VB mutants has been clear

▲Comparison of viral load, immune cell number and survival rate between VB mutant strain and other HIV strains (Image source: Reference [1])

It is worth noting that, unlike the resistance crisis induced by antibiotic treatment, VB mutants emerged in the Netherlands, not because of HIV treatment, because effective treatment can inhibit its transmission

Should we be worried about this newly discovered mutant strain?

"The observation that virulent, more infectious mutants emerge does not represent a public health crisis," wrote Professor Joel Wertheim of the University of California, San Diego, in a concurrent opinion piece.

For the VB mutant strain, the slowed spread rate in the past 10 years and the good therapeutic effect of ART all indicate that this mutant strain is difficult to pose a large-scale threat at least for now

Professor Christophe Fraser, who led the study, added: "The WHO recommends that people at high risk of HIV infection be regularly tested to enable early diagnosis and immediate treatment
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Our findings underscore the importance of this
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References:

[1] Chris Wymant et al.
, (2022) A highly virulent variant of HIV-1 circulating in the Netherlands.
Science.
DOI: 10.
1126/science.
abk1688

[2] Discovery of new highly virulent and damaging HIV variant in the Netherlands.
Retrieved Feb.
3, 2022 from https:// Highly virulent variant of HIV discovered in the Netherlands.
Retrieved Feb.
3, 2022 from https://