Researchers track the origins of HIV virus

A new study suggests that HIV may have affected humans much longer than is currently believed. In fact, the virus might have been around undetected for so many centuries that a human community developed some degree of resistance to the virus. It is generally believed that HIV originated from chimpanzees in central Africa that were infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which is also a retrovirus. “If you look at the diversity present across SIV in chimpanzees, it suggests that they have had it for tens of thousands of years,” said Alfred Roca, an assistant professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. The type of HIV that is associated with 90 percent of all HIV infections – HIV-1 M – is said to have migrated from chimps to humans between 1884 and 1924. However, Roca said that this virus might have been infecting isolated groups of...