Tuesday, March 3, 2015

HIV Virus mainly came from Gorillas

According to new study by medical scientists, it's confirmed that main source of HIV that causes AIDS is only Gorillas. These Gorillas live in southwestern Cameroon. There are four known strains of HIV and two of them came from these animals.

Four groups of strains are labeled as M, N, O and P for HIV-1 catergory. Apes have transferred these to humans whose major transmission started from Cameroon region. Group M and N are related to apes. But O and P are still unknown by its origins.


A team of researchers working on this project is led by Martine Peeters. Martine is a known virologist and works with IRD (France's Research and Development Institute). He showed presentation at National Academy of Sciences and given brief on HIV-1 M. He said that M group is main source of AIDS and around 40 million are merely infected with this category.

The exact figure of deaths is unknown until now. But a fare approximate of United Nations, more than 78 million has died of HIV since year 1981. When we know the origin of these virus species, possibility to find a cure increases.

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