I swear if anyone tells me i should not think white people are the scums of the earth.......i could not believe my eyes when i was reading this garbage. And just in case you miss it, ALL the participants they used for this study were NOT in Africa. They used DIFFERENT ETHNIC groups in AMERICA to come to their delusional conclusions. ANY African person that lies down with these pigs have strong stomachs!
Anyways, here is the article thats doing the newsround at the moment....i am gone post from 2 different news outlets and just look at the difference in INTERPRENTATIONS and sensationalism of both articles.
first off the BBC;
Malaria gene 'increases HIV risk'
A gene which apparently evolved to protect people from malaria increases their vulnerability to HIV infection by 40%, say US and UK scientists.
People of African descent have a variation of the "DARC" gene which may interfere with their ability to fight HIV in its early stages.
The Cell Host and Microbe study says the gene accounts for millions of extra HIV cases in sub-Saharan Africa.
However, people with the gene appear to live longer with HIV than others.
There has always been this myth that people in sub-Saharan Africa were more likely to get HIV because of differences in their sexual behaviour, or that they are more promiscuous
Dr Ade Fakoya
International HIV/AIDS Alliance
While the differences in HIV prevalence in different parts of the world can be partly explained by different social conditions and sexual behaviour, scientists have long suspected that there may be genetic reasons why the virus is rife in certain communities.
Research at University College London and the University of Texas focused on the Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines (DARC) gene.
The gene influences the levels of chemicals called chemokines, which play a role in the body's defences against viruses, and a variation is held by approximately 90% of Africans.
The origins of the variation are unclear, but it is thought to have evolved in response to widespread malaria outbreaks by offering protection against that disease.
The researchers did not use volunteers living in Africa, but analysed data from a 25-year study of Americans from different ethnic backgrounds with HIV.
They calculated that, after taking account of social and economic differences, people with the genetic variation were 40% more likely to be susceptible to the illness.
If the gene variant were not present in sub-Saharan Africa, they said, they would expect to see approximately an 11% lower burden of HIV in the region.
An estimated 24.5 million people are living with the disease there, and there are approximately 2 million deaths per year.
Survival mystery
However, paradoxically, having the variant could mean that the disease, once caught, does not advance as quickly.
People who carry it survive on average an extra two years longer than those who do not, said the researchers.
The precise reasons for both the any extra vulnerability to HIV, and the increased lifespan of HIV-infected people, are not clear, with the scientists suggesting a "complex interplay" between levels of the protein expressed by DARC, levels of chemokines, and levels of the virus.
Professor Robin Weiss, from UCL, one of the researchers, said: "The big message here is that something that protected against malaria in the past is now leaving the host more susceptible to HIV."
Dr Ade Fakoya, from the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, said that the findings could explain why some countries had a much higher prevalence of the disease.
He said: "There has always been this myth that people in sub-Saharan Africa were more likely to get HIV because of differences in their sexual behaviour, or that they are more promiscuous.
"This shows that it's not that simple, and I think it will be an important message for education programmes in these areas."
People who carry a gene for the blood cell abnormality sickle cell trait are also known to be protected against malaria.
Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Health | Malaria gene 'increases HIV risk'
Published: 2008/07/16 16:10:55 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
The Times; may i just say that this newspaper has gone to the bin....it's like it doesn't know where to stand.
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From The TimesJuly 17, 2008
Scientists make gene link to African HIV epidemic
Mark Henderson, Science Editor
A genetic variant peculiar to Africans substantially raises their risk of infection with HIV, according to research that suggests evolved susceptibility may be helping to drive the continent’s Aids epidemic.
The 90 per cent of Africans who carry the DNA variation are 40 per cent more likely to contract HIV than those without it, after similar exposure to the virus, scientists from Britain and America have found.
As the genetic change is common among people of African ancestry but virtually unknown among other ethnic groups, it could explain in part why HIV-Aids is more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. The United Nations estimates that 22.5 million people there are HIV-positive, more than two thirds of the global total of approximately 33.2 million.
The variant, known as “Duffy-negative”, is so common in Africa that it could be responsible for about 11 per cent of the continent’s HIV burden, or 2.5 million cases, scientists said.
“It is an Africa-specific variant, which is why it’s so interesting in the context of Aids research,” said Robin Weiss, Professor of Infection and Immunity at University College London, a member of the study team.
“It could certainly be a contributing factor to the scale of the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s the first time, so far as we understand, that a genetic factor that increases susceptibility to infection has come into play.”
Sexual behaviour is also involved in the epidemic in Africa, the only part of the world in which it predominantly affects heterosexuals.
The Duffy-negative gene has probably spread so widely through the African population because it provides resistance to a form of malaria called Plasmodium vivax. Professor Weiss believes it may also once have increased resistance against a precursor of the most deadly malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum.
These traits would have been highly advantageous in evolutionary Africa. As HIV is a new human pathogen, thought to have jumped from chimpanzees to people between 1910 and 1950, the gene’s effect on the virus would have had no negative consequences until recently. “Something that protected against malaria in the past is now leaving the host more susceptible to HIV,” Professor Weiss said.
Matthew Dolan, of the San Antonio Military Medical Centre in Texas, said: “After thousands of years of adaptation, this Duffy variant rose to high frequency because it helped protect against malaria. Now, with another global pandemic on the scene, this same variant renders people more susceptible to HIV. It shows the complex interplay between historically important diseases and susceptibility in contemporary times.”
For the study, published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, scientists examined a group of US Air Force personnel, of whom more than 1,200 are HIV-positive, and who have been followed for nearly 22 years. The Duffy-negative genotype was seen almost exclusively in African-Americans.
A continent cursed
— Sub-Saharan Africa is the globe’s most Aids-affected region. In 2005, 24.5 million of its people were living with HIV and of all Aids sufferers, 64 per cent live there
— In 2005, about 2.7 million people became infected with HIV and more than two million died
— More than two million children under 15 are HIV-positive and more than 90 per cent live in Africa
— About 12 million African children under 17 have lost one or both parents to Aids
— About 72 per cent of all people needing anti-retroviral treatment live in Africa, and only one in six receives the necessary medicine
— Swaziland has the highest HIV rate, at 33.4 per cent of population. Botswana has 24.1 per cent and Zimbabwe 20.1 per cent
Source: UNAids
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