WASHINGTON, Sept 5 (AFP) - The progression of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, is slowed by a benign virus, researchers found in a study to be published in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

GB virus type C (GBV-C), also referred to as hepatitis G, appears to have "retarded" the progression of HIV, according to a research team led by Jack Stapleton of the University of Iowa College of Medicine.

The discovery was made while the researchers were exploring links between alcohol consumption, the hepatitis C virus, GBV-C and cirrhosis of the liver in patients at the University of Iowa HIV/AIDS Clinic.

The study was carried out on some 362 HIV-positive patients, 40 percent of whom were also infected with GBV-C.

"We expanded the previous research by looking at a very large group of patients followed at our clinic between 1988 and 2000 and found that HIV-infected people without GBV-C infection were 3.68 times more likely to die than those with GBV-C," Stapleton said.

"This leads us to believe that GBV-C is one factor explaining how some people live longer and more healthily with their HIV infection than other HIV-infected people do," the researcher said.

Stapleton added that "it may be reasonable to consider using GBV-C as a novel therapeutic vector to delay disease progression."

GBV-C affects nearly 15 percent of people with hepatitis C, although it does not cause hepatitis or any other clinical symptoms, according to the researchers.

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