Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Monday December 27, 1999
Mark Egan

The findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, showed most women in the study initially were infected by multiple variants of the HIV virus while all of the men initially were infected by a single variant of the HIV virus.

Previous studies in the United States and Europe on how the HIV virus was transmitted focused mainly on men and led many to believe that only one variant of the virus was transmitted at the time of infection.

The new study appeared to confirm that to be the case in men, but not in women. Once infected by single or multiple variants of HIV, the virus replicates itself into even more genetic variants, making it difficult to develop a vaccine.

The ongoing study, led by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center of Seattle, was one of many aimed at better understanding the HIV virus in the belief that the best way to find a vaccine is to understand how the virus works.

"It may be that a vaccine might work better in men than in women," said Dr. Julie Overbaugh, who led the research.

STUDY TRACKS MEN AND WOMEN IN KENYA

The study tracked the sexual activity of heterosexual men and women in Kenya over more than four years, monitoring them for the presence of the HIV virus at intervals of about three months.

Of the 32 women infected, 20 were found to have been infected with multiple variants of the HIV virus. Further tests revealed each of the women was infected by a single partner, indicating they had contracted a variety of strains of HIV from one man, not several.

Of the 10 men in the study who were infected, all were infected with a single variant of the HIV virus.

Overbaugh admitted that like many medical studies, this one "raises more questions than it answers," adding that researchers must now consider "what the consequences are for women that are infected with a more complex virus."

Other questions she said must now be addressed are whether HIV infects women in a different way than men, if HIV infects different cell types in women and whether the virus replicates differently in women.

Studies comparing how the virus behaves in men and women are becoming increasingly important as the number of women infected had risen.

About 33 million people worldwide are infected with the HIV virus while 16 million who have been infected have died. This year about 5.6 million people globally contracted HIV while about 2.6 million died of AIDS.

In Africa, where the problem is the most severe, the number of women living with the virus has exceeded the number of men. About 12.2 million African women are infected with HIV while 10.1 million African men have the virus.
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