BBC "HIV epidemic blamed on flies" Castros Angola to Cuba ?

[poseidon55]

 

From: Thomas  <kaspa...@aol.comnojunk>
Subject: BBC "HIV epidemic blamed on flies"  Castros Angola to Cuba ?      
Date: Sunday, March 17, 2002 11:34 PM

HIV epidemic blamed on flies

 
Flies may have spread infection via open wounds

Blood-sucking flies may have been to blame for the HIV epidemic being unleashed
on humans, scientists suggest.
Many Aids researchers believe the HIV virus jumped species from chimpanzees to
humans at some point in the first half of the 20th century.

They think humans were first exposed when simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV),
the monkey version of HIV, got into open wounds of game hunters in west or
central Africa.

However, German scientists think stable flies may be responsible for HIV
invading humans, according to an article in New Scientist magazine.

The message is to practice safe sex and not to worry about being bitten by
flies
 
Professor David Mabey, communicable disease expert 
Most blood-sucking insects pose no risk of passing on HIV, including
mosquitoes, which inject saliva through one tube and suck up blood through
another.

However, stable flies, which bite humans, could be an exception and are known
to transmit equine leukaemia virus between horses.

When feeding, they scrape skin to make a wound, suck up blood and regurgitate
some on the skin next time they feed.

Any viruses in the regurgitated blood can invade the body through the wounds
made by the flies.

Unlike other blood-sucking insects that regurgitate blood, the stable fly does
not digest the blood it regurgitates.

Gerhard Brandner of the University of Freiburg, said: "The anterior part of the
mid-gut where the regurgitate is kept is just for storage and is free of
digestive enzymes.

"That's our key result, and is a precondition for transmission of HIV."

Distractions

If the flies sucked up virus-tainted blood from the chimps, they could transmit
it when they feed on humans, they believe.

They speculate that sporadic cases of HIV transmission via stable flies may
have happened for years but gone unrecognised.

If these rare infections still happen at all, they now pale into insignificance
alongside the explosive spread of HIV through unprotected sex.

It is a point reinforced by Professor David Mabey at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He said: "It's an interesting theory and no more.

"The trouble with all these stories is that they distract attention from the
main public health message, which is 90% of infections are transmitted by sex
or from mothers to infants.

"So the message is to practice safe sex and not to worry about being bitten by
flies."

Beatrice Hahn at the University of Alabama in the USA, who first reported
finding HIV infections in chimps in 1999 does not think the German research
should be taken seriously until further research backs it up.

She said: "There's no shortage of hypotheses of how SIVcpz made the jump to
humans and this is just another one.

"The task at hand is to find out for sure what happened and back it up by hard
evidence."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1871000/1871199.stm
http://www.ticotimes.net
http://www.thepanamanews.com
http://www.economist.com
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/lists/by-name/index.html
http://www.transfairusa.org/index.html

[Marc1917]

PLONK killfilter

"poseidon55" <posei...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:Bvel8.1239$XN1.4...@news20.bellglobal.com...