"New York Public Health Officials
Alarmed Over Dangerous Strain Of HIV
February 14, 2005 - Public Health officials in New York City are becoming increasingly concerned over the discovery of a rare and dangerous form of HIV that was found in a 40-year-old gay male in December.
The man had a history of engaging in unprotected sex with multiple partners. He was also a user of methamphetamines.

The man had tested positive for HIV in 2003 but in December had already had symptoms of AIDS. Blood tests showed a high level of the virus. The virus also showed resistance in treatment from four different drugs.

Dr. David Ho, who oversaw the testing, said, "All the evidence led to the conclusion that it was a very recent infection that led to very rapid progression, and was already highly drug resistant."

Dr. Ron Valdiserri with the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention has noted: "It's every alarming. We would hope that this case could serve as a wake-up call that we're still dealing with a very formidable adversary in HIV."

New York officials believe the man developed AIDS in only two or three months after his initial infection. The normal lag time between HIV infection and AIDS is from nine to 11 years. There is concern that this has already spread to the man's other sexual partners and could spread outside of New York."

A new fast developing strain of HIV that turns into AIDS within Months and is resistant to four of the known medications that stall this transition... Scary. Let's all hope that this does not evolve to transfer as easily as hepatitis.

*Quick note: Barkid's title isn't accurate--AIDS is not a virus.*

Really, I'm only mildly surprised by this. We've learned about evolution in APBio, so I can explain this a bit.

See, the reason why HIV is so destructive is because the virus mutates so quickly. HIV generates 10 to the 10th power new viruses every day. The only effective way to treat HIV is through use of "cocktails" (multiple drugs combined), but even then, any resistent strains survive and multiply so that within literally a few weeks, the entire HIV population is resistent to the cocktail.

So basically, HIV got much stronger. And now our technology has got to try to catch up.

I heard about this. It is really scary.

Holy crap.

That is really scary. AIDS has popping up everywhere since the 80s. You don't need to sustain from sex if you don't want to but you just need to be careful of who you sleep with and/or use protection. We hear the same stuff over and over again in Health class but it seems like a lot of people just don't listen.