HIV Weakening: Study Finds Virus Less Lethal Since Pandemic

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around a study suggesting that HIV may have weakened over time, particularly since the onset of the pandemic. Participants explore the implications of the findings, the methodology of the study, and the potential evolutionary dynamics of the virus.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express skepticism regarding the study's conclusions, noting the small sample size of only 12 HIV samples and the potential for the virus to mutate back to a more lethal form.
  • Others suggest that the findings may indicate evolutionary trends, with one participant humorously proposing the idea of "survival of the weakest."
  • There is a discussion about the implications of a less lethal virus potentially spreading more easily due to infected individuals being less aware of their condition.
  • Some participants argue that the nature of HIV as a chronic disease complicates the interpretation of the findings, as it does not kill its host quickly, allowing for transmission.
  • Concerns are raised about the rapid mutation of HIV strains, questioning the reliability of the study's snapshot of viral fitness.
  • Participants discuss the historical context of disease decline and the role of vaccines, with one participant drawing parallels to the argument that vaccines may not be necessary if diseases are naturally declining.
  • Several participants express interest in the original study and its methodology, seeking more detailed information about the research and its findings.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus; instead, multiple competing views remain regarding the implications of the study, the reliability of its findings, and the evolutionary dynamics of HIV.

Contextual Notes

Limitations of the study include the small sample size and the potential for rapid mutation of the virus, which may affect the generalizability of the findings. The discussion also highlights the complexity of HIV as a chronic illness and its transmission dynamics.

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Comparing HIV samples from 1986-89 to recent samples, an international team of scientists says the virus that causes AIDS has substantially weakened since the onset of the pandemic more than 20 years ago.

Reporting today in the journal AIDS, researchers from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, theorized the virus potentially could stop causing disease within 60 years. But the team emphasized that HIV, the pathogen that leads to AIDS, remains a lethal microbe.

Dr. Eric Arts, the U.S. collaborator from Cleveland, wrote with his Belgian colleagues that the findings suggest HIV's ability to replicate "may have decreased in the human population since the start of the pandemic." [continued]
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002530417_hiv30.html
 
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Hopeful thinking, my guess.
 
I'd agree with the last sentence in the article. It's interesting, but with only 12 samples, it's far from conclusive. And, if the findings hold up, there's also no guarantee that at the rate this virus mutates that it won't become stronger again. It might also be a result of human behavior. A weaker strain might be spread more readily because the infected people aren't aware of their infection as quickly or don't get as sick, while the stronger strains may still be out there ready to take hold if people get careless, but the people currently infected by those strains are too sick to spread it or are taking more precautions because they are more aware of their symptoms.
 
It sounds like evolution at work
 
Jikx said:
It sounds like evolution at work

Would that be "survival of the weakest"? :wink:
 
It's no advantage to a pathogen to kill off its host population. There's a lot of evolutionary thinking that suggests the most lethal ones evolve moderation over time, to permit the infected population to breed and transmit the parasite to newer generations.
 
Self Adjoint - your response is interesting in light of my question.

I have a 'friend' on another forum who is anti-vaccination. He argues that vaccines are introduced (typically) as a disease is in its decline anyway.

Why would a disease "decline"? (Self Adjoint, your answer applies.)

This article could easily be used as an argument that if a vaccine were developed for AIDS, that it was not really helping at the peak of the pandemic anyway - and that the disease would "disappear" on its own anyway... or at least become a non-virulent form.

The whole thing just sounds funny. And I'm not particularly articulate at the moment, which doesn't help.
 
pattylou said:
Why would a disease "decline"? (Self Adjoint, your answer applies.)
It's not so much that it would "decline" as become a less acutely lethal disease, but instead be more of a chronic disease. If you kill your host too quickly, there isn't much chance for spread, especially with something like HIV that requires fairly intimate contact to spread (it would be different for an airborne disease that can spread through dense populations quickly).

This article could easily be used as an argument that if a vaccine were developed for AIDS, that it was not really helping at the peak of the pandemic anyway - and that the disease would "disappear" on its own anyway... or at least become a non-virulent form.
I don't think that's what the article is saying. Of course, a lot of the diseases that vaccines are developed for are also not immediately lethal in most people, but they can lead to chronic health problems or disfigurement (think Polio...many kids died from it, but many others survived, yet wound up in a wheelchair or leg braces for life).

The problem with this article though, is that HIV is not an immediately lethal disease anyway. It is a chronic illness and has a sufficiently long time from acquiring the virus to conversion to AIDS and eventually death, even before medications were available, that it could spread quite readily, so the argument that the weaker strains would have a survival advantage in terms of keeping the host alive longer doesn't really hold up very well.

The difficulty in creating a vaccine to HIV lies in how rapidly it mutates to new strains. That's another reason I'm a bit skeptical about these findings. It doesn't look at a pattern, more of just a snapshot in only a few patients, so when the virus is known to rapidly mutate, how much weight can you give to a strain that is weaker when it's just one of so many out there (and if they weren't testing all the same strain, then your N is really even less than 12).
 
Here is Eric Arts homepage at Case Western Reserve

http://p450.case.edu/faculty/faculty.asp?arts

it does not look to me like he has updated his list of publications to include the article in AIDS journal that is being discussed here

however it shows earlier articles that he and co-workers have published in AIDS and in other journals

I would be interested to hear if anyone comes across the actual article

(the article itself may make several of the points made in this thread----e.g. that the sample is too small and the finding preliminary, that one might expect the pathogen to evolve into a less lethal form if this were to allow it to spread more widely in the population, as has happened in other cases, and that this is not necessarily something to get real happy about----and the article might have interesting references to other work)

Anyway hope to hear more. Thanks to Ivan Seeking for catching this one!
 
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  • #10
Ah! here is something interesting

http://www.aidsonline.com/pt/re/aids/currenttoc.htm


this is an online version of the AIDS Journal!

(probably it is pay-per-view, , but it may still give information)

It shows the 14 October issue TOC, with the Eric Arts article at the top

Replicative fitness of historical and recent HIV-1 isolates suggests HIV-1 attenuation over time.
Kevin K Ariën; Ryan M Troyer; Youssef Gali; Robert L Colebunders; Eric J Arts; Guido Vanham
 
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  • #11
the PDF text was not free, however
the abstract was free, so here it is:
===============================


http://www.aidsonline.com/pt/re/aids/abstract.00002030-200510140-00001.htm

Replicative fitness of historical and recent HIV-1 isolates suggests HIV-1 attenuation over time.
AIDS. 19(15):1555-1564, October 14, 2005.
Arien, Kevin K a; Troyer, Ryan M b; Gali, Youssef a; Colebunders, Robert L c; Arts, Eric J b; Vanham, Guido a,d
Abstract:
Background: Changes in virulence during an epidemic are common among pathogens, but still unexplored in the case of HIV-1. Here we used primary human cells to study the replicative fitness of primary HIV-1 isolates from untreated patients, comparing historical (1986-1989) and recent samples (2002-2003).

Methods: Head-to-head dual virus infection/competition assays were performed in both peripheral blood mononuclear cells and human dendritic cell/T-cell co-cultures with pairs of 12 carefully matched historical and recent HIV-1 isolates from untreated patients. Sensitivity to inhibition by lamivudine (3TC) and TAK-779 of historical and recent R5 HIV-1 isolates was measured in a subset of samples.

Results: Overall, the historical HIV-1 out-competed the recent HIV-1 isolates in 176 of 238 competitions and in 9 of 12 competitions carefully matched for CD4 cell count. The mean relative replicative fitness (W) of all historical HIV-1 strains was significantly greater than that of recent HIV-1 isolates (W1986-1989 = 1.395 and W2002-2003 = 0.545, P < 0.001 (t test)). The more fit viruses (mean W > 1) from 1986-1989 appeared less sensitive to TAK-779 and 3TC than did the less fit (mean W < 1) 2002-2003 viruses.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that HIV-1 replicative fitness may have decreased in the human population since the start of the pandemic. This 'attenuation' could be the consequence of serial bottlenecks during transmission and result in adaptation of HIV-1 to the human host.
 
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