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TROPICAL RAINFORESTS: Disappearing Opportunities
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About this site
Providing tropical forest news, statistics, photos, and information, rainforests.mongabay.com is the world's most popular rainforest site. [more] |
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The Origin of AIDS
The real origin of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)
is not an experiment gone awry or a Western conspiracy against Africans, but a virus from the rainforest of West
or Central Africa.
AIDS is actually not a single disease but a collection of infections and malignancies that occur as a result of
infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV weakens the immune system by destroying lymphocytes, a
type of white blood cell that wards off infection.
There are three known HIV viruses (HIV-0, HIV-1, HIV-2), all which are classified as retroviruses of the lentivirus
family. These viruses are descended from simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) present in monkeys and apes. Presently
it is still unclear how HIV-1 (the virus that most menaces man) made the species jump from SIV-infected chimpanzees
to humans. One theory is that the SIV contamination of polio vaccines administered during widespread immunization
campaigns in Central Africa during the late 1950s was responsible for the transfer. Another leading theory suggests
that HIV originated from "natural transfers" of SIVs (through bites and scratches) from simians to humans
in Central Africa. Under this theory, the relatively recent outbreak of HIV as a global epidemic can be attributed
to increasing contact between forest dwellers and the outside world through urbanization, civil unrest, deforestation,
immunization campaigns, and the construction of an extensive road network.
At the 7th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco, a team of researchers announced
they had traced the divergence of AIDS from SIV to around 1930. The study assumed genetic changes in the virus
occur at a constant rate. Should this dating prove correct, it would undermine OPV/AIDS hypothesis.
More HIV/AIDS resources at mongabay.com:
Table showing the impact of AIDS on life expectancy in the Developing World
Anti-HIV compounds from the rainforest
Editorial proposing estimates of AIDS deaths may be exaggerated
AIDS is leading cause of death for South African women [The Wall Street Journal]
FDA fast-tracks HIV vaccine [The Wall Street Journal]
AIDS vaccine trials [The Wall Street Journal]
U.N. Estimates 480 million fewer people [The Wall Street Journal]
Continued: Extinction
Unless otherwise specified, this article was written by Rhett A. Butler [Bibliographic citation for this page]
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