Parasitic worms may boost African HIV rates.

sea-maid submitted, created time 3 months 3 weeks (www.newscientist.com)

ONE of the biggest mysteries of HIV is why the virus spreads so readily via heterosexual sex in Africa but not elsewhere. A study in monkeys suggests parasitic worms may be to blame.

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Parasitic worms may help fuel AIDS epidemic: study

kavin submitted, created time 3 months 3 weeks (www.reuters.com)

People infected with parasitic worms may be much more susceptible to the AIDS virus, according to a study published on Tuesday that may help explain why HIV has hit sub-Saharan Africa particularly hard.

The study involving monkeys demonstrated how a type of parasitic worm that causes schistosomiasis, which affects 200 million people globally, may make HIV infection more likely.

Much lower amounts of the AIDS virus--seventeen times lower--were needed to cause infection in monkeys who had the parasitic worms than in the parasite-free monkeys, the researchers said

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Genetic Variant Raises HIV Risk

sea-maid submitted, created time 4 months 3 days (www.time.com)

There's no doubt Africans have borne the brunt of the AIDS epidemic. Now researchers in London and Texas say it may have something to do with a single gene variant that could account for 11%, or about 2.5 million, of Africa's HIV cases.

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Herpes/HIV Correlation Wrong

jerry submitted, created time 5 months 22 hours (www.time.com)

Doctors have long suspected that people with herpes are more likely to catch HIV. So they thought that by treating herpes, they could also cut a person's HIV risk. But a new study that tested this strategy found the assumption may have been wrong.

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