The third strain

New HIV strain detected for the first time in 19 years

Maria Azarova, Naked Science

A research team from the chemical and pharmaceutical corporation Abbott Laboratories together with the University of Missouri reported the discovery of a new strain of human immunodeficiency virus for the first time in 19 years. According to Mary Rogers, the lead author of an article published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (Yamaguchi et al., Complete genome sequence of CG-0018a-01 establishes HIV-1 subtype L), they continued to look for new potential HIV strains to ensure the relevance of diagnostic tests for blood screening and detection of infectious diseases.

The human immunodeficiency virus has several different subtypes, or strains, like other viruses, in addition, it is able to change and mutate. The newly identified strain is extremely rare: it can be recognized using a screening system from Abbott Laboratories, which checks more than 60 percent of the global blood supply.

To declare the discovery of a new subtype of HIV, you need to have three independent confirmed cases of its infection. Thus, the first two were identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1983 and 1990. The third sample, also from the Congo, was found in 2001, but then it seemed to doctors similar to the two previous cases, and there were no necessary technologies to determine the subtype at that time.

Scientists from Abbott Laboratories and the University of Missouri have created new techniques for studying and mapping the 2001 sample. Mary Rogers compared it to finding a needle in a haystack. However, the researchers managed to order the sample and determine that it is a new subtype of group M of the HIV-1 type. It is not yet clear how this strain affects the body, but it is encouraging that modern treatments can combat many subtypes of HIV, including the recently discovered one.

According to John Sacha, a professor at the University of Oregon's Institute of Vaccines and Gene Therapy, the aim of the study was to remind people of the dangerous diversity of HIV.

"This tells us that the HIV epidemic is still ongoing. The hallmark of the virus is its diversity. This is what has become an obstacle to all our attempts to create a vaccine. More than 37 million people are living with HIV today – this is the highest incidence rate. Although people think that this is no longer a problem and everything is under control. In fact, this is not the case," Sacha stressed.

The discovery of American specialists managed to react in Russia.

"This will not lead to a change in treatment for sure. The only thing is that it will be even more difficult to create a vaccine. That is, not 30 different subtypes will have to be taken into account, but 31. <...> It is necessary that the vaccine works against all these subtypes. And also during the diagnosis, because, in particular, the tests that this company Abbott Laboratories produced 10 years ago did not detect patients infected with subtype A. <...> Therefore, they had to redo their test system," said Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Federal Scientific and Methodological Center for the Control and Prevention of HIV Infection of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a comment to RIA Novosti.

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