Started by Men's Rights Activist, May 26, 2006, 01:25 AM
"WASHINGTON (AP) - Twenty-five years after the first AIDS cases emerged, scientists have confirmed that the HIV virus plaguing humans really did originate in wild chimpanzees, in a corner of Cameroon.Solving the mystery of HIV's ancestry was dirty work. Scientists employed trackers to plunge through dense jungle and collect the fresh feces of wild apes - more than 1,300 samples in all."
"We're 25 years into this pandemic," Hahn said. "We don't have a cure. We don't have a vaccine. But we know where it came from. At least we can make a check mark on one of those."
"Presumably, someone in rural Cameroon was bitten by a chimp or was cut while butchering one and became infected with the ape virus. That person passed it to someone else.The Sanaga River long has been a commercial waterway, for transporting hardwood, ivory and other items to more urban areas. Eventually, someone infected made it to Kinshasa."How many different transmission events occurred between that initial hunter and this virus making it to Kinshasa, I don't know. It could have been one, it could have been 10, it could have been 100," Hahn said. "Eventually, it ended up in an urban area, and that's where it really got going."Somewhere in all that spread, the virus became more deadly to people than it is to chimps, who seldom are bothered much by SIV."
Yes, well...Strangely enough HIV infections are equal between the sexes (according to US army tests) but AIDs sufferers are majority male.Funny thing, that.
