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Highly Virulent HIV Variant Discovered in the Netherlands
Context
“VB variant”, a new, highly-virulent form of the HIV-1 virus has been discovered in the Netherlands by an international collaboration led by researchers at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute.
About
About the variant
- The variant likely arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the Netherlands, but began to decline around 2010.
- Its origin has been traced as far back as to the 1990s using genetic sequence analysis.
- This is the main group of HIV-1 that triggered the HIV pandemic worldwide in 1981.
- The strain’s high virulence is calculated based on viral load and CD4 counts — “the concentration of CD4+ T cells in peripheral blood, which tracks immune system damage by the virus”.
- CD4 cells, also known as T cells, are white blood cells that fight infection and play an important role in your immune system.
- A CD4 count is used to check the health of the immune system in people infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus).
- HIV attacks and destroys CD4 cells.
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What is HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)?
Symptoms
Stages of HIV
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Key-highlights of the study
- Higher level of virus in blood: The analysis showed that patients infected with the “VB variant” had 3.5 to 5.5 times higher levels of the virus in their blood than those infected with other variants.
- Fading immune system: It also found a more rapidly fading immune system.
- However, the study also found that after starting treatment, individuals with the VB variant had similar immune system recovery and survival to individuals with other HIV variants.
- In total, the team found 109 people infected with the VB variant, with only four living outside the Netherlands, but still in western Europe.
- The HIV virus is constantly evolving, so much so that each person infected has a slightly different version. The VB variant, however, was found to have over 500 mutations.
- The research team first identified the VB variant in 17 HIV positive individuals by parsing a broad data set from the BEEHIVE project, a data collection and analysis initiative in Europe and Uganda.
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BEEHIVE project The BEEHIVE project is an ongoing study funded by the European Research Council that looks at what causes a more severe impact on a person infected with HIV. |
- The project identified 17 individuals whose viral loads were ‘highly elevated’.
- Fifteen of these were from the Netherlands and one each from Belgium and Switzerland.
Is it alarming?
- Because of the effectiveness of modern treatments, is “no cause for alarm.”
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