A newfound variant of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has been uncovered in the Netherlands and appears to cause faster disease progression compared with other versions of the virus.
Do other viruses have as many variants as SARS-CoV-2?
"The authors use the case study to underpin the importance of universal access to treatment," said Katie Atkins, chancellor's fellow at Edinburgh Medical School and an associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who was not involved in the study. Viral genetic sequence data was available for more than 8,000 of these individuals, and of these, about 6,700 were infected with subtype B viruses. Within this group, the researchers identified 92 individuals with the distinctive VB variant, which brought their total to 109.
The team was able to construct a diagram called a phylogenetic tree based on the available genetic data,"very similar to normal family trees for humans" that show how closely different individuals are related to each other, Wymant said. In other words, on top of being highly virulent, the VB variant may also be more transmissible than other versions of HIV. However, this finding is less conclusive than the evidence of increased virulence, since the tree provides only indirect evidence of the virus's transmissibility, Wymant said.
The discovery of a highly virulent HIV variant isn't necessarily surprising, Wertheim said."This finding is in line with both evolutionary theory and the trends towards increased virulence we've seen in the United States over the decades," he told Live Science."I am most surprised by how stark and distinct this newly described cluster is."
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