AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Tue, 29 Jan 2002

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Tue, 29 Jan 2002
-----------------------------------------------

* New York Times Examines 'Surge' in Child Rape Cases in South Af-
  rica, Link to HIV Myths
* New York Times Examines How Studying HIV-Like Viruses Among Animals
  May Explain Jump to Humans

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New York Times Examines 'Surge' in Child Rape Cases in South Africa, 
Link to HIV Myths

The New York Times today profiles the "surge" in reported cases of 
child and infant rape in South Africa and how the rapes could be con-
nected to HIV/AIDS myths. South Africa has recently experienced sev-
eral "widely publicized" cases of child rape, including one that in-
volved a nine-month-old baby. Approximately 40% of all reported rape 
cases in South Africa in 2000 involved victims under the age of 18, 
and about 20% of all rape and attempted rape cases in the first six 
months of 2001 involved victims under 11. The Times reports that the 
rising number of child rapes could be linked to the "popular" AIDS 
myth that having sex with a virgin can cure HIV. Thoko Majokweni, 
South Africa's special director for the prosecution of sexual of-
fenses, said that psychologists and researchers will begin to study 
the circumstances of child rapes that occurred in 2000 and 2001 to 
cull any information pointing to underlying causes of the sexual as-
saults (Swarns, New York Times, 1/29). The full article is available 
online.


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New York Times Examines How Studying HIV-Like Viruses Among Animals 
May Explain Jump to Humans

Large populations of wild cats, African monkeys and some chimpanzees 
that are infected with viruses similar to HIV but that rarely get 
sick may give scientists clues as to how HIV first infected and will 
progress among humans, the New York Times reports in an article in-
vestigating the origins of HIV/AIDS. After discovering a virus ge-
netically similar to HIV in three captive chimpanzees of the sub-
species Pan troglodytes troglodytes from west-central Africa, Drs. 
Beatrice Hahn and George Shaw of the University of Alabama-Birmingham 
theorized that HIV made the "jump" from chimps to humans "decades 
ago" in western Africa when humans killed and consumed infected chimp 
meat. However, "to the investigators' surprise" another study -- in 
which the team tested the feces and urine of 58 wild chimps in Africa 
-- found only one wild chimp infected with a different virus that was 
similar to a "genetically distinct AIDS-like virus" Hahn and Shaw had 
found in a fourth monkey in their earlier study. The team, along with 
primatologists, was searching for a "reservoir" of chimps infected 
with HIV-like viruses that they thought must exist if the virus had 
been passed to humans. The study results, which appeared in the Jan. 
18 issue of Science, left researchers with three hypotheses: large 
groups of chimps may be infected with the HIV-like virus, but those 
groups are so isolated that the virus has not spread to the general 
chimp population; chimp groups that were once infected have gone ex-
tinct; or there may not be much infection among chimpanzees. Hahn and 
Shaw's team is now conducting tests with chimps that are "completely 
wild" -- those that do not live on reservations under the observation 
of primatologists -- to test their new hypotheses.

Evolutionary Examples

Most of the infected chimps Hahn and Shaw had studied did not become 
ill from the HIV-like viruses they carried. Wild cats and African 
monkeys also carry HIV-like viruses, but do not get sick from the in-
fections. However, the virus found in wild cats does cause illness in 
domestic cats. More than a decade ago an HIV-like virus that caused 
symptoms similar to AIDS was found in domestic house cats in the 
United States. Dr. Stephen O'Brien, a cat expert and head of the 
Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Cancer Institute, be-
gan looking for the virus in serum samples obtained from wild cats 
such as lions and cheetahs and determined that the "vast majority" of 
wild cats carried the virus. However, none of the wild cats were 
sick. The cats had "somehow learned to live with the virus." An HIV-
like virus also has been found in more than 20 species of African 
primates who do not develop symptoms. In contrast, Asian monkeys do 
get sick when exposed to the same virus that does not cause illness 
in African monkeys. "African primates all carry their own little vi-
ruses," Dr. Jonathan Allan of the Southwestern Foundation for Bio-
medical Research in San Antonio said, adding, "in some species, the 
viruses have been there for thousands of years. And the natural host 
never gets sick." 

Biological Response

Dr. Mark Feinberg, a professor of microbiology and immunology at 
Emory University, examined the immune response of sooty mangabeys, a 
West African monkey species, to a virus "identical" to HIV-2, which 
is widespread in the species. HIV-2 is a human AIDS virus that is en-
demic to West Africa but is not found in large numbers outside that 
area. Feinberg, who had theorized that the monkeys would naturally 
have to keep the virus at bay, actually determined that the monkeys 
had high levels of virus in their systems and that the immune system 
was simply producing new cells to stay ahead of the virus. The same 
phenomena -- an aggressive immune system response to high viral lev-
els -- was observed in wild cats. O'Brien said it is a "predictable 
adaptation" and may give researchers clues as to how HIV will pro-
gress in the human population. "When a virus gets into a population, 
like HIV jumped into humans, it can kill off the species or not. If 
it does not, either the virus becomes weakened or the species 
changes," he explained. Feinberg added that the same phenomena is 
"going to happen" in humans. "The severity of the epidemic in some 
parts of the world is so profound that it will clearly impact human 
evolution. In the past, we've been left to infer what the impact of 
infection was on human evolution. [Now], we will have the opportunity 
to observe it," he said (Kolata, New York Times, 1/29).

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The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, 
a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National 
Journal Group Inc. © 2002 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser 
Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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