Dual Infections Occur More Often Than Realized

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Dual Infections Occur More Often Than Realized

AIDS Alert (12/98) Vol. 13, No. 12, P. 142

Scientists previously believed that dual infection with multiple strains of HIV occurred only in rare cases, but new data show that dual-infection cases may be more common than formerly thought. Dr. Patricia Fultz of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, and colleagues investigated HIV- infected chimpanzees that were exposed to an unrelated HIV-1 strain. Using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests of cellular DNA from blood and lymph nodes, the researchers found that they could identify the second strain, but only within the first six weeks of exposure to the second HIV strain. According to Fultz, the finding "indicated that the prior infection was downregulating and bringing under control the second strain that the animal was exposed to, which is what you would like in a vaccine." Even universal primers did not pick up the second strain in some animals. Using PCR primers to the strains that had infected the animals, the scientists found that almost every animal was, in fact, infected with a second strain, indicating that primers preferentially pick up one strain. Fultz said she is not optimistic about the ability of existing methods to detect secondary strains.

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