Chimpanzees die from primate version of HIV
Study shows AIDS-like health effects in a wild population
A primate version of the virus that causes AIDS was long thought to be harmless in its African hosts, but chimpanzees have not been spared after all.
A long-term study of a wild population has found that chimpanzees naturally infected with simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, die early and their babies die within a year of birth. In one instance, a female died with all the hallmarks of end-stage AIDS. The work, reported in the July 23 Nature, could help researchers understand the pathogenicity and species-to-species transmission of immunodeficiency viruses that, up until now, have appeared to pose serious health hazards primarily to humans.
Previously, Asian macaques, a type of monkey, were the only nonhuman primates known to regularly develop full-blown AIDS when infected with SIV.