AIDS Virus Reportedly Came to US Via Haiti

The strain of the HIV virus which predominates in the United States and Europe has been traced back to Haiti by a team of scientists. The team hopes that knowing the virus’s origin could help find a cure for HIV, which can lead to AIDS. Correspondent Jessica Berman in Washington has this report.A team of scientists, whose work was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that a specific strain of the HIV virus passed from Haiti to the United States in about 1969 before spreading further.

The strain, called subtype B, predominates in the United States, Europe, large parts of South America, Australia and Japan.

The team traced the virus by examining archived blood samples from five early AIDS patients - all of them Haitian immigrants to the United States - and analyzed genetic sequences from another group of patients from around the world.

Using the data, they developed a map of the virus, which they believe shows conclusively that the strain came to the United States via Haiti, probably by a single person, in around 1969.

Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona in Tucson is one of the study’s authors. He says once in the United States, it appears the HIV virus circulated undetected for about a dozen years among members of the Haitian community before the first transmission in 1969 in the caucasian community.

He says the path of the virus he and his colleagues constructed corresponds with the start of the global pandemic and recognition of the first cases of HIV in 1981.

“AIDS came to the attention of the world through this form of the virus,” he noted. “This was the form of the virus that was killing young gay men in Los Angeles and in New York. And that was what finally alerted people to the fact that we had something new on our hands here. And the fact is that was just the first sort of tip of the iceberg. The iceberg went much deeper. The virus had a much longer history even before it was noticed.”

Scientists are certain that the AIDS virus developed somewhere in Africa after a virus jumped from monkeys to humans. But there are still questions about the history of HIV and how it incubated in Africa before moving on to the rest of the world.

Worobey and his team now want to trace the strain back further. His suspicion is that it probably arrived in Haiti from the Congo from Haitians who were working in Africa during those years.

Worobey says understanding the origins of this and other strains of HIV will enable scientists to predict how the virus may mutate in the future.

“If you look back in time about how the virus colonized different parts of the world it then helps you look forward in time to try to predict ok, in 10, 20, 50 years from now,” he added. “What’s the pandemic going to look like? How many different strains of the virus are going to be circulating in each area and so forth?”

Worobey says the AIDS strain in question has a deeper history in Haiti than in all the other countries it traveled to. Its genetic diversity is more extensive, he says, making development of a one-size-fits-all vaccine extremely difficult.

By Jessica Berman

NetNewsPublisher 

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Nigeria’s Embattled Speaker Resigns Over Contract Scandal

Some Nigerians have welcomed the news of the resignation of embattled speaker of the House of Representatives and her deputy as a step in the right direction in President Umaru Musa YarAdua’s promise to fight graft. Some political observers say the resignations are a first step towards restoring order in the House of Representatives, which has yet to debate a single piece of legislation since its inauguration in June because all parliamentary business has been reportedly overshadowed by the contracts scandal. Read more

Scientists Make Breakthrough Discovery of Monkey Population in Kenya

After much news of late about how primates are being threatened across Africa, there’s good news from Kenya. A new population of an unusual species of monkeys has been found in a most unexpected location.

Scientists are calling it a breakthrough discovery in primate research.The De Brazza Monkey can grow up to five feet in length, counting its tail, and weigh more than seven and a half kilograms. But what really stands out is the De Brazza’s snowy white beard and mustache.

Up until recently, it was thought there were only 700 such monkeys in Kenya. Conservation officials say the discovery was made in an arid region of northern Kenya, in “one of the last intact indigenous forest ranges.”

Iregi Mwenja is a research scientist with the Institute of Primate Research. It’s a department of the National Museums of Kenya. He also works closely with the conservation group Wildlife Direct. He confirmed that the monkeys were indeed De Brazzas, not known to exist east of the Great Rift Valley.

“De Brazza Monkeys in Kenya, we say they are endangered. But in Africa, we have stable populations in Congo, which is in the central part of Africa, but Kenya being the easternmost range of the species. We have a very low population. They have been estimated to be less than a thousand. So, before the discovery it was estimated to be at least 700. So, at least an additional 25 percent is significant to the conservation of the species in Kenya,” he says.

The habitat of the new population - the Mathews Range Forest Reserve - is described as “an island of biodiversity.”

“First you must understand the nature of the De Brazzas. They are very shy. The habitat that they occupy is usually very dense riverine forest. So, it is difficult to just spot them, apart from just walking along a river. Unless you deliberately, you know, go for them. So, this particular case the habitat is isolated. It’s in a very remote part of Kenya where we have very low human traffic. Of course, the local people knew about it and they had already given it a name. So they knew about them. They knew it very well,” he says.

In other parts of Kenya where the De Brazzas live, deforestation is a threat, as humans make room for agricultural land.

Mwenja says, “They have been saying that in probably 40 or 50 years there would be no suitable habitat remaining for the De Brazzas. But in this case what we found is that this is a new habitat relatively safe from human degradation. And this offers new hope for the species. They are not under serious threat, so we’re sure they’ll be there for longer.”

Mwenja says scientists aren’t sure how or when the De Brazzas arrived in the northern party of Kenya, since none were thought to exist east of the Great Rift Valley. The valley was formed about two million years ago and separated some species. However, the primate expert theorizes that at some point in its history there was some “connectivity,” as he puts it, between the eastern and western parts of the valley. A connection - possibly a wet forest corridor - that no longer exists.

Dr. Richard Leakey, chairman of Wildlife Direct and well-known paleontologist and conservationist, writes, “It is a critical issue for study as it puts climate change again as the most critical consideration as we plan for the future.”

A recent study - Primates in Peril - warns that at least 25 species of primate are at risk of extinction around the world.

By Joe De capua

NetNewsPublisher

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Many Pakistanis Against Military Operations Along Afghan Border

An opinion survey in Pakistan indicates most people do not support military operations against Al Qaida and Taliban groups in the country’s tribal areas. VOA’s Barry Newhouse reports from Islamabad. Read more

Monks in Burma March For First Time Since Crackdown

More than 100 Buddhist monks are reported to have marched in northern Burma, for the first time since the military government violently crushed pro-democracy protests last month. The march came as a human rights group said Burma continues to recruit children as young as 10 years old for its military. VOA’s Heda Bayron reports from our Asia News Center in Hong Kong. Read more

Bomb Blast in Russian City of Togliatti Kills At Least 8

At least eight people are dead and 56 have been injured following a bomb blast on a bus in the Russian city of Togliatti. VOA Moscow Correspondent Peter Fedynsky reports that local authorities are treating the explosion as a possible act of terrorism. Read more

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