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  • Title: Thailand HIV type could endanger U.S. heterosexuals.
    Journal: AIDS Wkly Plus; 1996 Mar 18; ():23-4. PubMed ID: 12319993.
    Abstract:
    Scientists have thus far detected 10 subtypes of HIV-1. HIV-1 subtype B is prevalent in the US and Western Europe and is transmitted mainly through anal sex between gay men or IV drug use. Only 10% of HIV-1 subtype B transmission is through heterosexual vaginal intercourse. Indeed, few non-subtype-B cases of HIV have been identified in the US, mainly because most HIV testing does not screen for subtypes. HIV subtype E, the Thai subtype, was first detected in the US in the Fall of 1995 by scientists at the US Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, California. The subtype-E infections in five American servicemen were discussed in the November 5, 1995 issue of the Lancet; three of the men contracted the virus from Thai prostitutes. HIV-1 subtype E infects the cells which line the female reproductive tract and is more easily transmitted during heterosexual vaginal intercourse. Although Thailand has both subtypes B and E, 90% of HIV transmission in the country involves subtype E through heterosexual sex. It remains unclear whether subtype E will develop into a heterosexual epidemic in the US, but given the accelerated rate and ease with which the subtype spreads among heterosexuals, its presence in the US may pose quite a threat to the health of the heterosexually active population. Dr. Max Essex, chairman of the Harvard AIDS Institute, recommends that subtype surveillance studies be conducted on high-risk, low socioeconomic urban populations being tested for STDs including HIV. Although Dr. Gerald Myers, director of the HIV Sequence Database AIDS Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, believes that the fear of outbreak of subtype E is overly exaggerated, he does agree that countries should expect to see multiple HIV subtypes appear in their populations. These different types of viruses could make it more difficult to develop an effective vaccine against AIDS since most efforts thus far to find an effective vaccine against HIV/AIDS have been directed against subtype B.
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