Is HIV Evolving Into A Weaker Virus?

[n2doc]

Viruses are masters at mutating.

So the big concern with deadly viruses, like Ebola and hepatitis C, is that they will evolve into more dangerous forms over time.

It looks like just the opposite is happening with HIV — although it's happening slowly.

"HIV can generate any mutation in the book, on any day," says virologist Philip Goulder at the University of Oxford.

Over a 10-year period, HIV has picked up mutations that make it slightly less virulent in parts of southern Africa, Goulder and his team reported Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That means it could take a little longer for some people to develop AIDS if they don't get HIV treatment. The mutations push back the average time to develop AIDS in Botswana from about 10 years to about 12.5 years, Goulder says.

more

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/12/03/368025500/is-hiv-evolving-into-a-weaker-virus

[Xipe Totec]

1. Vectors adjust their strategies to survive.

HIV is not the first and will not be the last where the most virulent strains die away because they kill their hosts too soon and have no chance to reproduce, while the less virulent forms can lay dormant longer and have more chances of jumping to another host. Evolutionary pressure works both ways.

[Warpy]

2. I predicted 20 years ago that the virus would likely attenuate over time because

that's what a lot of rapidly mutating viruses have done in the past.

That doesn't do anyone living with it now, or the next few generations to come, any good at all. It is still a dangerous virus that is a pain in the ass to fight if you want to keep on living.

Get tested every few months. Protect your partners.

Many years down the road, we will likely see a vaccine developed from a less virulent strain that might be effective against the more virulent ones.