Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1987. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press; Friday May 8, 1987
The microbe, known as HIV-2, also could raise questions about the accuracy of AIDS tests.
HIV-2, discovered in 1984, genetically resembles HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS found in the U.S., and SIV, the virus that causes an AIDS-like disease in monkeys.
In a report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, doctors from the Pasteur Institute in Paris showed that HIV-2 can cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) indistinguishable from that triggered by HIV-1.
"It seems to be localized at the moment" in West Africa, said Dr. Francois Clavel. "But there is no reason why this epidemic would not spread over Africa or Europe or other countries like HIV-1 did, unless we are very vigilant and can detect carriers of the virus."
Pasteur researchers previously reported finding HIV-2 in two AIDS patients. Clavel said this study, documenting HIV-2 infection in 30 people, provides strong evidence that the virus actually causes the disease.
The two viruses appear to attack the body in similar ways. Clavel said that while some parts of HIV-1 and HIV-2 are alike, others are different, and the overall genetic similarity is about 40 percent.
Just what this means for finding an AIDS vaccine is unclear. Clavel said drug manufacturers may be able to base a vaccine on parts of the two viruses that are identical, so one vaccine would block both AIDS viruses.
However, Dr. Norman Letvin of the New England Regional Primate Research Center, an expert on the monkey AIDS virus, says he fears that people vaccinated against HIV-1 will remain susceptible to HIV-2.
In their report, the French researchers wrote that "it appears clear the HIV-2, a virus related to but distinct from HIV-1, is the cause of AIDS in some West Africans and that a new AIDS epidemic is possible (but not yet documented) in West Africa."
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