AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, June 26, 2000
Prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports

NewsRx -- HIV evolved from a benign simian infection into a human virus in the early 1930s, long before it was recognized as a disease, but it stayed in remote Africa until jet travel, urban environments, and the sexual revolution spread it worldwide, a new study suggests.

Researchers measuring the rate of genetic change in HIV found that current strains originated from a common ancestor that first evolved from a simian virus in southwest Africa between 1915 and 1941, with 1931 the most likely year.

"It could have been in humans even before that," said Tanmoy Bhattachary, a researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The study was reported in the June 9 issue of Science¹.

Bhattachary said the most common form of HIV worldwide evolved from simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), that was in the chimpanzee. SIV genetically converted to HIV either while it was in the chimp or after a human contracted SIV.

The disease did not become a worldwide menace, he said, until people left the isolated areas of Africa and transported the virus globally.

"It could have evolved in humans and stayed in a very small population, such as a village," said Bhattachary. "That is typically what most new diseases do. They are in an isolated population and then something happens and it starts spreading all over."

The findings are consistent with earlier studies that suggested that HIV originated early in this century and then was spread when Africa became less isolated.

Bhattachary said the date when SIV first evolved to HIV makes it "very unlikely" that a polio vaccination campaign in the late 1950s can be blamed for the rise of AIDS. Some researchers have suggested that a polio vaccine made using chimpanzee kidney cells could have transferred the virus into humans between 1957 and 1960.

Although the new research could not eliminate that possibility entirely, Bhattachary said, the fact that HIV originated before the polio vaccine means "you can probably discount that scenario."

Another researcher, Jim Moore of the University of California, San Diego, said the Los Alamos study is consistent with his findings that conditions in colonial Africa were ripe, starting in the late 19th century, for a new virus to take hold and spread.

Colonial powers forced people out of villages, causing many to live in the jungles, surviving by hunting and gathering, said Moore. A major food was meat from chimps and monkeys. "This created conditions ideal for the transfer [of a virus] from chimps and a spread into small populations," said Moore.

Later, he said, large work gangs were organized to build roads and mines, with some construction organizations promoting prostitution to keep the isolated workers content.

Moore also said campaigns to vaccinate the African population against small pox and other diseases may even have helped HIV spread, saying, "They weren't using sterilized needles all the time."

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

Reference

1. Science 2000 Jun 9;288(5472):1757-9.

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