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The New York Times |
The genetic and immunologic tests were developed in stages
over the past seven years to help trace the evolution of H.I.V. and solve the
mysterious origins of AIDS, said Dr. Beatrice H. Hahn, a virologist at the
University of Alabama in Birmingham. Dr. Hahn led the international team that
conducted the study, which combined genetics and epidemiology.
The new findings, she said in a telephone interview, do not
explain the entire chain of events that led from the first human H.I.V.
infection to the infection of 65 million people around the world.
But, Dr. Hahn reported, her team's findings show "for the
first time a clear picture of the origin of H.I.V.-1 and the seeds of the AIDS
pandemic." H.I.V.-1 is the virus that causes the vast majority of AIDS cases in
the world. The first cases of AIDS were detected in the United States in
1981.
Studies estimate that the human AIDS virus jumped species 50
to 75 years ago. But no one knows who the first infected person was or how that
person acquired H.I.V.
The earliest H.I.V. infection was documented in 1959 in an
unidentified man in Kinshasa, in what was then the Belgian Congo and is now
Congo. The man participated anonymously in a genetic study conducted by Dr. Arno
Motulsky of the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr. Hahn said her team theorized that H.I.V. was first
transmitted locally somewhere in west-central Africa. Because the subspecies of
chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, in which the simian virus had been
found in captivity, lives in the wild in Cameroon, Gabon and the Congo Republic,
the first infection could have been in any of those areas.
If the transmission occurred in southern Cameroon, where the
new chimpanzee studies were conducted, an infected person or persons could have
carried the virus traveling by river to Kinshasa. From there, it spread farther
and eventually around the world, according to Dr. Hahn's
hypothesis.
Wild chimps are reclusive, live in remote jungle areas and
form geographically distinct communities. "You can hear them, but not see them,"
Dr. Hahn said.
So, with the permission of the government of Cameroon, Dr.
Hahn's team asked hunters, members of expeditions and workers sent by local
health officials to collect fecal samples from the forest floor, particularly
near the base of fruit trees.
Dr. Hahn sent hundreds of test tubes containing a
preservative. As the trekkers collected samples they put them immediately into
the test tubes and then into their backpacks. They collected 599 fecal samples
in 10 forest sites in the southern part of Cameroon.
The preservative allowed the specimens to be kept for weeks,
until they ended up in Dr. Hahn's laboratory. There she tested for antibodies
that detect S.I.V.cpz. She found evidence of infection with that virus in 5 of
the 10 field sites.
Different DNA tests identified each individual chimp and its
sex. Other tests found evidence of the simian virus.
The team found that there was widespread but uneven infection
with that virus. The prevalence was up to 35 percent in three communities; 4 and
5 percent in two communities; and none in five communities.
The communities with a high prevalence of infected chimpanzees
were located south of the Sangha River, which flows into the Congo River and on
to Kinshasa. That led Dr. Hahn's team to the theory that some infected person
carried H.I.V. from a remote area to Kinshasa, where it was then passed
on.
It is not known whether chimpanzees infected with S.I.V.cpz
become ill, Dr. Hahn said. She said more collections were needed in other vast
areas of Africa to provide a clearer picture of the evolution of AIDS and to
determine if there were other viruses that could cause epidemics like
AIDS.
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