3 ms·

> Not my area of expertise but even if we can address 99% of strains, wouldn't that last 1% just take over and become the new 100% leaving us back where we star

> Not my area of expertise but even if we can address 99% of strains, wouldn't that last 1% just take over and become the new 100% leaving us back where we started? Not my area of expertise either, but as I understand it, it really depends on how many strains you are infected with. If it's just one, it'd reduce the infections in the next generation of patients by 99%. If the average patient had 10 strains, randomly distributed, it'd still reduce the infection rate by 90% (because there's a 10% chance of having that one resistant strain). Only if all HIV patience had all strains (and I'm pretty sure that's not the case) would it bring us back to where we started.

dogma1138 10y ago
You don't reduce the infection rate by 99% or by 90%, it's not even the correct term really. The transmission rate of HIV is not really dependant on the strain but on the behaviour of the affected host. Since HIV infection can be asymptomatic even for the natural life of a host the transmission rate is then dependant on the environment the social interaction of that host. A host that has unprotected sex (or any other risky activity as far as blood transmitted diseases go) and does not get tested regularly will have a considerably higher transmission rate than a host that has only protected sex and gets tested when they switch partners. Most HIV patients are infected with multiple strains, because at this point most new infections are multi-strain ones due to the lifestyle of the hosts and due to the fact that the virus can mutate in vitro. I'm also not clear how does this press release counts "strains", since it's 16 it's more than just by major types HIV-1 and HIV-2, but then it's the question of what and how they count sub groups. Most people in the west will get infected by HIV-1 Group M type B, type B itself can have several variations, and there are also host specific mutations, and if you are coinfected with another subtype you can have multiple variations of both and also recombinant (a new form made out of several types of the virus due to coinfection of a single cell) variations that may or may not be unique to each host. That said effective post infection and pre AIDS outbreak treatments can drastically reduce of new hosts that end up as transmission vectors and carriers, if HIV becomes a considerably more manageable disease that would allow most infected people to carry on with a normal lifestyle (safely have sex with a partner, and have children) once treated more people are more likely to be tested regularly. If you can also contain the disease to specific subtypes which are regionally locked as sad as it sounds you still doing quite a bit of good since now you can focus your resources on education and containment as well as further research since the transmission rates between say interveinal drug users in Berlin are considerably higher than between a sex worker in nairobi and the same drug users.

dogma1138 10y ago

You don't reduce the infection rate by 99% or by 90%, it's not even the correct term really. The transmission rate of HIV is not really dependant on the strain but on the behaviour of the affected host. Since HIV infection can be asymptomatic even for the natural life of a host the transmission rate is then dependant on the environment the social interaction of that host. A host that has unprotected sex (or any other risky activity as far as blood transmitted diseases go) and does not get tested regularly will have a considerably higher transmission rate than a host that has only protected sex and gets tested when they switch partners. Most HIV patients are infected with multiple strains, because at this point most new infections are multi-strain ones due to the lifestyle of the hosts and due to the fact that the virus can mutate in vitro. I'm also not clear how does this press release counts "strains", since it's 16 it's more than just by major types HIV-1 and HIV-2, but then it's the question of what and how they count sub groups. Most people in the west will get infected by HIV-1 Group M type B, type B itself can have several variations, and there are also host specific mutations, and if you are coinfected with another subtype you can have multiple variations of both and also recombinant (a new form made out of several types of the virus due to coinfection of a single cell) variations that may or may not be unique to each host. That said effective post infection and pre AIDS outbreak treatments can drastically reduce of new hosts that end up as transmission vectors and carriers, if HIV becomes a considerably more manageable disease that would allow most infected people to carry on with a normal lifestyle (safely have sex with a partner, and have children) once treated more people are more likely to be tested regularly. If you can also contain the disease to specific subtypes which are regionally locked as sad as it sounds you still doing quite a bit of good since now you can focus your resources on education and containment as well as further research since the transmission rates between say interveinal drug users in Berlin are considerably higher than between a sex worker in nairobi and the same drug users.