Monkeys Have AIDS-like Virus

Monkeys Have AIDS-like Virus

NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2001

CHICAGO (UPI) – Evidence of HIV-like viruses in several species of African monkeys – animals often hunted for their meat for human consumption – adds weight to theories that AIDS originated from animal contacts.

French researchers said Tuesday they had identified 13 species of monkeys in West Africa that harbored a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIVcpz) similar to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS.

In addition, scientists in the United States found evidence in chimpanzees that SIVcpz is found in animals in East Africa as well as West Africa, suggesting that not only is the virus widely distributed in Africa, but that continued hunting of the species for food and keeping the animals as pets could result in another outbreak of an AIDS-like disease.

Dr. Eric Delacorte of the University of Montpelier, France, took blood samples from monkey species that were sold as meat as well as blood from animals kept as pets. Laboratory analyses of the viruses in those animals showed that about 17 percent of the specimens harbored SIVcpz strains – including four strains not seen before.

"These data document for the first time that humans are continuously exposed to an unprecedented variety of SIVs through the consumption of bush meat," Delacorte said at the 8th annual Retrovirus Conference in Chicago.

Mario Santiago, a researcher at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said many experts believe that HIV jumped from animals to man a number of times in the past, as evidenced by the different strains of the AIDS virus that have been identified in Africa and have now spread around the world.

Santiago and colleagues collected urine and fecal samples from several chimpanzee families in East Africa before isolating SIVcpz strains in those animals. Although endangered and legally protected, the chimpanzees are hunted for food by some African communities. Santiago said the findings of his study and that of Delacorte's suggest "that cross-species transmissions between men and animals are still going on."

Scientists theorize that the virus infected humans either through cuts in preparing the meat or bites or scratches from pets. "Although the circumstances, frequencies and routes of zoonotic [animal-to-human] transmission of primate lentiviruses remain to be determined," Delacorte said, "surveillance programs using specific tests for the various SIVs may be warranted."