Chinese scientists have identified what they say is the most complex HIV ever discovered, in the blood of a long-distance truck driver from Myanmar.

Scientists from the Kunming Institute of Zoology sequenced genetic materials extracted from the driver’s blood after he entered China from a border checkpoint in Yunnan province.

In the sample, all nine genes of the HIV had been reprogrammed in a more sophisticated way than the most complex HIV found to date.

“Reprogramming only occurs when the carrier catches different types of virus repeatedly. Gene recombination is possible when different types of virus exist in his blood at the same time,” said Zhou Yanheng, a PhD student at the institute who published the discovery in the US journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.

“The complexity of the newly found virus does not necessarily mean that the virus is becoming more infectious or more prevalent, but it may reflect the epidemic of HIV in the border regions of Yunnan province,” Zhou said.

“The constant and regular movement of high-risk groups between China and Myanmar is increasing the bidirectional spread of HIV between these two countries and thus contributes to the genetic diversity of the virus,” he said.

bbabo.Net