Canadian scientist, Professor Jacques Pepin from the University of Sherbrooke spoke about the new hypothesis of patient zero with HIV infection. The Daily Mail reports.
According to the expert, for the first time a person contracted HIV during the First World War. The scientist suggests that the “zero” patient was a French, Belgian or British soldier who took part in hostilities against German troops in Cameroon. He noted that the main problem for the soldiers at that time was not enemy bullets, but hunger.
Pepin believes that the military quickly ran out of food and decided to hunt monkeys and other animals. “My hypothesis is based on the fact that one of the soldiers was infected while hunting. A chimpanzee was killed, and during cutting it was injured, which led to infection, ”the specialist explained.
According to the scientist, the main reason for the spread of HIV infection is the reuse of needles in hospitals due to a general shortage of medicines.
Google News!In September, scientists at the University of Michigan found a potential cure for HIV. The researchers found that the virus uses the Nef protein to bypass the infected organism’s immune system. Screening a database of 200,000 small molecules showed that there are no known compounds among the FDA-approved drugs that could block Nef and restore MHC-I function. However, in the LSI library of microbial synthesis products, which contains information on 30 thousand compounds, a class of antibiotics called pleycomacrolides was found that can block Nef.
