AIDS Virus getting mutated for good

Dr. Eric Artz and team from the Institute of Tropical Medicine has published the results of the work in the journal AIDS, in which they have said that the HIV virus has become less pathogenic due to reduced multiplication rate and is now more sensitive to anti-retroviral drugs compared to the strains in late 1980s.

The research team compared the HIV samples collected in between 1986-89 with the samples collected during 2002-03. The researchers compared 12 samples from each time period and found that there is a difference in multiplication as well as in the sensitivity to the drugs. The researchers though accept that their work is a preliminary work but still could reveal new insights into pathogenicity of the virus. The researchers feel that the virus may still have the pathogenicity and cause death in the humans, but they feel that the virus is forming an equilibrium with the human body for a longer survival in the body and in an other 50 to 60 years the virus may loose its pathogenicity and may become non virulent.

Dr. Marco Vitoria from WHO, feels that HIV is trying to survive for more years in the human body by becoming less virulent so that it can survive by forming a commensalisms with the human body, but cautioned that this report published is just a preliminary study so people and high risk patients should not get in to any conclusions based on the report.

Though this study reports increased sensitivity pattern to drug and reduced multiplication shown by the virus there are other study reports showing the increased resistance pattern of HIV virus.