Health

Key finding on AIDS

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Scientists studying chimps in Tanzania have made a discovery that could change our understanding of AIDS. The scientists say chimps infected with a virus closely related to HIV are developing immune problems and dying at a high rate. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with the study’s lead author, Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH, Boston. An international team of scientists has made a discovery that may change our understanding of the history and future of the AIDS pandemic. Scientists have long believed that the AIDS virus, HIV, evolved from a related virus that infects monkeys and chimpanzees. It’s called SIV for Simian Immunodeficiency Virus. Researchers had thought that SIV was relatively harmless, but it now turns out that infected chimpanzees in Africa are coming down with what is, in essence, AIDS. The research was done at Gombe National Park in Tanzania. That’s where Jane Goodall conducted her pioneering work with chimps. Dr. Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham headed the current study. Her team followed the chimps for 10 years to see how those infected with SIV fared.

BEATRICE HAHN: When we compared the two groups infected and the uninfected chimps in Gombe, we realized the mortality in the infected group was significantly increased.

LISA MULLINS: Why is that so surprising though, because we know that mortality among humans with HIV, who eventually develop AIDS, that the mortality will be increased, they’ll die from the disease very often. Why is it so surprising that Simian’s who have SIV will eventually become sick?

BEATRICE HAHN: It’s surprising because we assumed the opposite. We assumed that chimpanzees worked just like these other primate species, for which we had data that they don’t get sick. We found that infected chimps were 10 to 16 times more likely to die in any given year than uninfected ones.

LISA MULLINS: So how does this new finding then, promote any kind of change in our understanding, and perhaps even treatment of HIV in humans.

BEATRICE HAHN: It provides an opportunity. It lets you look at HIV one infection in humans from a different angle. Obviously, chimps have it too, but they don’t have it quite as bad as humans, there must be a difference. Chimpanzees must have evolved a different way to deal with their infection. Although at the end, some of them also dies prematurely or of AIDS. And, to just compare and contrast that will give us new insight in how HIV works in people.

LISA MULLINS: I suppose when you unveil information like this, especially when it contradicts earlier research that you personally had done, it must be, in many ways, heartening, because you have unraveled something that had been so difficult, that may in fact help humans eventually in terms of the treatment or the infection rate anyway, of HIV and AIDS. On the other hand, is it for you good news or bad news that chimps themselves are not resistant to AIDS, and that they do die from it just as humans do?

BEATRICE HAHN: It’s good news and bad news. [LAUGHS] It’s potentially bad news for chimpanzees because it’s still another factor that does them in. The good news is, it gives us new avenues to combat HIV one. There’s a great interest right now to look at genetic determinance in people that modulate how the disease comes about or doesn’t come about. There are people who progress very rapidly, and there are people who don’t progress at all. And people want to know what are the genetic determinance in the host that are responsible for that. And finally, perhaps chimps mount different types of immune responses. Perhaps more efficient neutralizing antibody responses that we could then utilize to make better vaccines for humans.

LISA MULLINS: I imagine it also would help out withy a job of conserving chimps. There are so many chimp populations that are now endangered.

BEATRICE HAHN: I would hope so. I know these chimps like the back of my hand. You get to know them, you get to know their life histories, you know what they do. I need to know this information in order to factor it into my virus research. And it’s extremely interesting, and somewhat gratifying, and you get attached to them. And every time we identify a new individual that has become infected, it’s both a good thing and a bad thing. You [INDISCERNIBLE], oh my god, why this chimp? And then you say, okay, now we have to study it and factor in all the particular things we know about this particular individual.

LISA MULLINS: By the way, did that happen with one chimp recently, that you said, why this one?

BEATRICE HAHN: Yes.

LISA MULLINS: Which one?

BEATRICE HAHN: It did. I will not disclose the identity of my chimps.

LISA MULLINS: You won’t disclose the identity of your chimps?

BEATRICE HAHN: No.

LISA MULLINS: How come?

BEATRICE HAHN: It’s a sensitive subject, just like in people.

LISA MULLINS: [LAUGHS] Really?

BEATRICE HAHN: Well, it’s our choice. We obviously know these chimps, and Jane, you know, has given them names to make them more personal to humans. There’s an important and interesting psychology going on here. I fully subscribe to that, but on the same hand, when you disclose an infected individual, you open that individual up to potential harm, and we don’t wanna do this.

LISA MULLINS: It’s really interesting research, we appreciate you talking to us. Beatrice Hahn’s study of an AIDS like illness in African chimpanzees appears in this week’s issue of The Journal Nature. Dr. Hahn joined us from the studios of WBHM in Birmingham, Alabama. Thank you.

BEATRICE HAHN: Thank you.

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