>But Michael Worobey, head of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, who was also not involved in the recent study, is more sanguine. Worobey says it is not a surprise that there are a diverse number of HIV strains in Central Africa, which is where the disease originated. Identifying a new one does not add much to the knowledge of HIV, he says.<p>> “It’s actually misleading to describe genetic diversity from the [Democratic Republic of the] Congo as a new subtype,” Worobey says, “because the only useful meaning of the term ‘subtype’” would come from identification of a lineage of the virus that has spread significantly beyond Central Africa. Guidelines for classifying new strains of HIV were established in 2000. The recently discovered subtype belongs to the most common form of HIV, group M, which accounts for more than 90 percent of all HIV cases, Rodgers says.<p>The amount of press that this has gotten, seems to me like a submarine marketing job by Abbott.
Here's a link to the actual study[0]. I wonder how this new strain is affected by HIV prevention meds like PReP.<p>[0] <a href="https://journals.lww.com/jaids/Abstract/publishahead/Complete_genome_sequence_of_CG_0018a_01.96307.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://journals.lww.com/jaids/Abstract/publishahead/Complet...</a>
I was expecting to read that this was newly evolved, but it was actually newly discovered. I’m curious about what factors led to it existing for so long without being discovered.<p>“The most recent of the three samples used to identify HIV-1 group M subtype L has been sitting in an Abbott freezer since 2001. ... Abbott researchers found two additional examples of the strain—in samples from 1983 and 1990”<p>I admire the foresight of having kept these samples where they could be studied with future techniques.