Researchers have discovered a new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) strain in West Africa, which is more aggressive and develops into AIDS much more rapidly than other strains.
In a study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, researchers have found a new HIV strain, which is a "recombinant" virus, or a hybrid virus arising from two HIV strains. The newly found strain called A3/02 is across between the 02AG and A3 viruses. Scientists claim that A3/02 can develop into AIDS in around five years after first infection, which is the shortest time period of HIV-1 types.
The new strain has been found in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, and the 02AG and A3 types are the most common viruses found in the region. Researchers believe that the new strain is currently isolated to Guinea-Bissau only.
More than 60 different HIV strains exist and usually geographic regions are affected by one or two of these types. Previous studies have suggested that if a person is infected with two different HIV strains, they can fuse and a recombined form of virus can occur.
"In countries and regions with high levels of immigration, such as the US and Europe, the trend is towards an increasingly mixed and complex HIV flora, unlike in the beginning of the epidemic when a small number of non-recombinant variants of the virus dominated. There is, therefore, reason to be wary of HIV recombinants in general," said Angelica Palm, first author of the study and a doctoral candidate at Lund University in Sweden.
Joakim Esbjornsson from the University of Oxford, who is also the co-author of the study, was the first to report the new HIV strain found in West Africa.
Data suggests that there are around 4.9 million people in the Asia-Pacific region who are living with HIV. There are 12 countries in the world, which have more than 90 percent of total HIV infected people. The countries are: India, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
A separate study done by the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control found that around 131,000 people in Europe had contracted HIV in 2012, which is an increase by 8 percent when compared to 2011.
AIDS in Western Europe dropped by 48 percent between 2006 and 2012 but in the eastern region AIDS increased by 113 percent during the same period.
