HIV essays

HIV essays In West- Central Africa people probably been dying of AIDS for Thousands of years. And they contracted HIV-1 virus by hunting chimpanzees for meat. Fend Goo a scientists from The University Of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) theory is that for centuries, HIV infections were limited to Gabon, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea which are parts of Africa, because they had little contact with the outside world until after WW2. After 1945, the economy changed which brought more travelers to Africa and the disease may have slowly started to spread around the world. Scientist tried to follow the roots of HIV back to it's source and found evidence of the virus in humans from a serum sample taken in the Congo in 1959. For a lot of years, AIDS researchers have thought that human HIV viruses resulted from cross- species transmission namely from some sort of ape or monkey to humans. HIV2 is linked to a simian immunodeficiency virus found in a monkey. Chimpanzee genetics are more than 98% identical to human genetics. Also chimpanzees are only disease hosts not carriers for a virus similar to HIV1 infects humans. Figuring out would lead to more effective AIDS therapies and perhaps even a vaccine. It may also prevent future cross- species transmissions of other HIV mutations. Scientists have discovered three different groups of HIV1 (Groups M,N,O) that they think have come from separate cross- species transmissions. Group M viruses cause AIDS epidemics around the world and are currently infected about 35 million carriers but groups N and O have been contained to villagers in West Central Africa. The researches at UAB did an experiment on there theory of cross species transmission by putting together chimpanzee conservation groups operating near the epicenter of HIV in Africa. The chimp experts described a trade in "bush meat" for human consumption. If the meat is infected the virus infect humans when they handle th ...