New HIV strain discovered for the first time in many years
Abbott Laboratories has identified a new HIV strain — subtype L of group M — for the first time since 2000. The discovery will help us understand how the virus has evolved.
Abbott Laboratories has identified a new HIV strain — subtype L of group M — for the first time since 2000. The discovery will help us understand how the virus has evolved.
Employees of the pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories have identified a new HIV strain for the first time since 2000. It was found in the bodies of three residents of Congo. It belongs to the most widespread and dangerous group M (from main) of HIV-1. The strain was assigned subtype L. According to scientists, this discovery will help us understand how the virus has evolved and spread.
Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Federal Scientific and Methodological Center for the Prevention and Control of AIDS and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that developers of HIV vaccines should consider every possible subtype of the virus rather than focus on just one. In his view, this discovery must be taken into account when creating vaccines.
In any case, the most universal vaccine possible is needed, because another subtype may emerge a few years after the current one. “There is nothing surprising about the discovery of new HIV strains and subtypes, since the virus can change. Africa is home to many strains, and different ones have spread to different countries; in Russia, for example, strain A is the most common,” Pokrovsky says.
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