HIV Strain Found In Cuba Leads To Fast-Progression Of AIDS

Researchers at Belgium's University of Leuvan have discovered an extremely lethal strain of HIV that holds the power to develop into AIDS within just three years of infection.

Belgian doctor Anne-Mieke Vandamme, a study co-author of the findings published in the journal EBioMedicine, was contacted by Cuban health officials to examine the fast-moving strain that had been found in the area.

A typical HIV infection without treatment can take at least 5 to 10 years to develop into AIDS. However, for the new strain, researchers have found that its rapid progression may prevent certain antiviral treatments from being effective.

"So this group of patients that progressed very fast, they were all recently infected" lead author of the study, Anne-Mieke Vandamme said, via Fox News. " And we know that because they had been HIV negative tested one, or a maximum of two years before."

For the study, researchers examined the blood from 73 recently infected patients. Within three years of infection, all those with the mutated strain, now classified as "CRF19," developed a combination of HIV subtypes A, D and G.

"Here we had a variant of HIV that we found only in the group that was progressing fast; not in the other two groups" Vandamme added. "We focused in on this variant and tried to find out what was different, and we saw it was a recombinant of three different subtypes."

Researchers have also found the variant in Africa, though the numbers were too small to be fully researched. The strain in Cuba is also more widespread and severe. 

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