Study: HIV Becoming Less Deadly, Less Infectious

An anonymous reader writes: A new study (abstract) from Oxford University shows HIV is weakening as it evolves in response to our immune system. When the virus encounters somebody with a particularly strong immune system, it sacrifices efficiency in replication to gradually overcome those defenses. This causes it to take more time for the infection to cause AIDS. Professor Philip Goulder said, "It is quite striking. You can see the ability to replicate is 10% lower in Botswana than South Africa and that's quite exciting. We are observing evolution happening in front of us and it is surprising how quickly the process is happening. The virus is slowing down in its ability to cause disease and that will help contribute to elimination." Goulder added that the average time from infection to the onset of AIDS has increased by 25% over the past 10 years.

Comments

All parasites aspire to be symbiotic

[jd.schmidt]

Strange but true, at the end of the day all parasites are better off when they become symbiotic. There is no advantage to killing off your free meal, in fact your are better off lending a hand.

Re:All parasites aspire to be symbiotic

[Registered Coward v2]

Strange but true, at the end of the day all parasites are better off when they become symbiotic. There is no advantage to killing off your free meal, in fact your are better off lending a hand.

depends on the parasite's life cycle. If they can only live within the host then become symbiotic, or at least not causing illness and death, is beneficial. If they only need the host for one part of their life cycle, such as wasps that use insects as a source of food of rhetoric larva; then killing the host is not a problem.

Re: Then again, maybe it _is_ good news.

[Njorthbiatr]

Viruses mutate much faster than humans.

Re:Contribute to Elimination?

[Registered Coward v2]

"The virus is slowing down in its ability to cause disease and that will help contribute to elimination."

Not sure if this is incorrectly phrased or i'm incorrect in my understanding of viral evolution... The virus has evolved to slow down the process of causing disease, surely this is because it is advantageous to the continuation of this virus, if the host dies too quickly they are less likely to pass on the virus. So how does this contribute to eliminating the virus? is it not the opposite? Longer infected lifespan == Greater chance of transmission.

What the article says is the virus, as it adapts to a strong immune system weakens it's ability to replicate; thus slowing down the onset of the disease in the host. If another person is infected by this weaker virus, the new infection results in an even weaker virus as it tries to adapt to the host. In essence, each successive infection results in a virus less able to replicate and thus result in a slower and slower onset of AIDs. Over time, the virus may lose it's ability to replicate fast enough to cause AIDs and merely be another infection for the body to deal with.

Re:Evolution?

[ArcadeMan]

You're probably like a lot of readers, who now only read Slashdot for the cultural reference replies, the snarky replies or to find comfort in reading other comments with the same views as your owns.

And let's not forget the trolls and the pointless personal attacks, you stupid brain-dead half-wit redneck moron bastard.