HIV Linked to Deforestation
An international team of researchers from the University of Alabama, led by Dr Beatrice Hahn, told a conference in Chicago they had traced the roots of HIV-1 to a virus found in a subspecies of chimpanzee. This discovery supports the claim that by destroying primate habitats, those responsible for forest clearance caused HIV to take up residence in humans. HIV spread to humans when deforestation decimated ape and monkey populations, causing the HIV virus to adopt humans as "an abundant alternative host" (see article by Dr Jaap Goldsmith). As well as being promising news for HIV research, this story is further evidence that deforestation is not a very good idea. What other diseases could reach the human population as a result of habitat destruction?
Humans first caught HIV from chimps, say scientists
By JACKIE DENT and agencies
A chimpanzee named Marilyn who died almost 14 years ago has proved that HIV has spread from apes to humans.
The disease was passed on when human hunters killed chimps in Central Africa and caught the virus after eating them or having contact with their blood.
An international team of researchers from the University of Alabama, led by Dr Beatrice Hahn, told a conference in Chicago they had traced the roots of HIV-1 to a virus found in a subspecies of chimpanzee known as Pan troglodytes troglodytes. They said this subgroup had developed an immunity to HIV, so by studying the chimpanzee it could be possible to find a cure and a vaccine for the disease in humans.
"It took us 20 years to find where HIV-1 came from, only to realise that the very animal species that harbours it is at the brink of extinction," Dr Hahn said. "We cannot afford to lose these animals, either from the animal conservation point of view or a medical investigation standpoint. It is quite possible that the chimpanzee which has served as a source of HIV-1 also holds the clues to its successful control."
According to a Reuters report, Marilyn the chimpanzee had never been used for AIDS research and died at the age of 26 after giving birth to stillborn twins. Samples of her blood and tissues showed she had a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which very strongly resembled three subgroups of HIV.
Meanwhile, a Sydney AIDS expert predicts that Australian research will "get a shot in the arm" from the discovery.
Professor John Dwyer, director of the AIDS Treatment and Research Centre at Prince of Wales Hospital, has been involved in AIDS research for 15 years and described the news the University of Alabama as a "triumph".
"Based on this, we've got applications due very shortly for the National Health and Medical Research Council for the next round of grants, and I would be amazed if there wasn't a flurry of activity that I would expect the NHMRC to support, given this encouraging news.
"Trying to find out what it is that the monkey's immune system does that protects it becomes of crucial importance."
He said Australian researchers, in particular the Macfarlane Burnet Centre in Victoria, have been leading a field of HIV research with patients known as "long-term non-progressives", who carry the virus but never develop full-blown AIDS.
This group represents about 5 per cent of HIV carriers in the world. "Whatever these people are doing, it is a bit like what goes on with these chimps. They are immune as well.
"I think this will be a shot in the arm for funding for research along those lines, to try and compare the long-term non-term non-progressives in Australia with what is going on with these chimps.
"We are desperate for a vaccine and this is the only way we are going to control it."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Feb 2, 1999
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