"The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance" is a book by Laurie Garrett, first published in 1994
It provides a comprehensive account of the emergence and spread of new infectious diseases in the modern world
Garrett explores how factors like unpurified drinking water, improper use of antibiotics, local warfare, and massive refugee migration contribute to the spread of diseases such as HIV, Lassa, Ebola, and others
The book takes readers on a journey through the past fifty years, highlighting the global battles against microbes and the conditions that have led to recurrent outbreaks of new and mutated diseases
Garrett also discusses potential solutions and actions that can be taken to prevent future epidemics and ensure a healthier future
It's a fascinating and insightful read for anyone interested in public health, epidemiology, and the impact of environmental and social changes on disease dynamics.
Have you read it, or are you planning to?
list all the diseases that was mentioned in the book, the coming plague
Here are the diseases mentioned in Laurie Garrett's book, "The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance":
HIV/AIDS
Lassa fever
ebola virus
Marburg virus
legionaires disease
hanta virus
toxic shock syndrome
bolivian herrhagic fever (machupo virus)
yellow fever
brazillian meningitis
swine flue
malaria
smallpox
Garrett explores how these diseases emerged and spread, often highlighting the social, environmental, and infrastructural factors that contributed to their outbreaks.
Is there a specific disease or aspect of the book you're particularly interested in?
tell me the history of HIV and AIDS from the virus perspective
The history of HIV and AIDS from the virus perspective is quite fascinating and complex. Here's a brief overview:
Origins
HIV-1: The pandemic strain of HIV-1, known as Group M, is believed to have originated from the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) found in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) in Central Africa
The crossover to humans likely occurred through the hunting and consumption of chimpanzee meat
HIV-2: This strain is less transmissible and is closely related to SIV found in sooty mangabeys (Cercocebus atys atys), a type of monkey found in West Africa
Early Spread
1920s: The earliest known case of HIV-1 dates back to a blood sample from 1959, but scientists believe the virus crossed over to humans around the 1920s in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), particularly in the city of Kinshasa
1960s: The virus spread to Haiti, likely through individuals who had worked in the Congo and returned home
Global Pandemic
1980s: HIV/AIDS was first recognized in the early 1980s in the United States, initially among gay men, intravenous drug users, and hemophiliacs
The disease was initially called GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) before being renamed AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
1983: It was discovered that women could also be infected through heterosexual sex
1987: The first anti-retroviral drug, AZT, was approved by the FDA
1996: Combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) became the standard treatment, significantly reducing AIDS-related deaths
Modern Era
2000s: Efforts to combat HIV/AIDS have included global initiatives like the UN's Millennium Development Goals and the establishment of World AIDS Day on December 1st
Present: While significant progress has been made, HIV/AIDS remains a major public health issue, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa
The history of HIV and AIDS is a testament to the importance of scientific research, public health initiatives, and global cooperation in addressing infectious diseases. If you have any specific questions or need more details, feel free to ask!
how many known strain of HIV virus that we know about
There are two main types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2
Each type has several groups and subtypes
HIV-1
Group M (Major): This group is responsible for the majority of HIV infections worldwide
. It has nine subtypes: A, B, C, D, F, G, H, J, and K
Group N (Non-M): This group is rare and has been found in a small number of people in Cameroon
Group O (Outlier): This group is also rare and has almost as many variations as Group M
Group P: This is the newest group and is quite different from the other groups
HIV-2
Group A: This group is the most common among HIV-2 strains
Group B: This group is less common
Groups C through I: These groups are rare and not currently circulating in humans
In total, there are two main types, four groups within HIV-1, and nine groups within HIV-2
Each group can have multiple subtypes and strains, making the virus incredibly diverse
what do we know about patient zero about the spread of HIV infection
The term "Patient Zero" refers to Gaëtan Dugas, a Canadian flight attendant who was initially identified as a central figure in the early spread of HIV/AIDS in North America
Dugas was labeled "Patient Zero" in a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1984, which tracked a cluster of 40 AIDS cases in the United States
However, this label was later found to be inaccurate
Recent studies have shown that Dugas was not the first person to bring HIV to the United States, nor was he responsible for spreading the virus across the country
Genetic analysis of stored blood samples has revealed that HIV was already present in the U.S. before Dugas was infected
The term "Patient Zero" was a result of a misunderstanding and has since been debunked
Dugas' story highlights the importance of accurate information and the dangers of misinformation in public health narratives
Despite the stigma he faced, Dugas was very cooperative with researchers, providing valuable information that helped shape our understanding of the epidemic
Does this help clarify things for you?
Scientifically, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a virus that attacks the body's immune system
how long did it takes for the scientific community to identify the HIV virus and the associated diseases
The scientific community took several years to identify HIV and the associated diseases. Here's a brief timeline:
Early 1980s
1981: The first cases of what would later be known as AIDS were reported in the United States, primarily among gay men in Los Angeles
The disease was initially called GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency)
1982: The term "AIDS" (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) was officially introduced by the CDC
Researchers began to suspect that the disease was caused by an infectious agent
Mid-1980s
1983: Scientists at the Pasteur Institute in France isolated the virus responsible for AIDS, which they named Lymphadenopathy-Associated Virus (LAV)
Around the same time, researchers at the National Cancer Institute in the U.S. isolated a similar virus, which they named HTLV-III
1984: It was confirmed that LAV and HTLV-III were the same virus, and it was renamed HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV
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historical timeline of retrovirus
Copilot said
Sure! Here's a brief historical timeline of retroviruses:
1970s: Retroviruses were known to cause cancers in animals, but their role in human diseases was unclear.
1976: Robert C. Gallo and his team discovered interleukin-2 (T-cell growth factor), which allowed them to culture human T cells in vitro.
1980: Gallo's team discovered the first human retrovirus, HTLV-I (Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1), in a patient with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.
1981: Yorio Hinuma and his team reconfirmed the discovery of HTLV-I.
1982: Gallo's group described HTLV-II.
1983: Luc Montagnier presented findings on a new retrovirus with lentivirus morphology at Cold Spring Harbor.
1984: Montagnier's group published the first peer-reviewed paper on this new retrovirus, isolated from two siblings, one with AIDS.
1984: Gallo's group published four papers in Science, establishing that this new retrovirus (HIV-1) was the cause of AIDS.
This timeline highlights key milestones in the discovery and understanding of retroviruses, particularly their role in human diseases.
Is there anything specific you'd like to know more about?
A historical reflection on the discovery of human retroviruses
Anders Vahlne
Retrovirology volume
Abstract
The discovery of HIV-1 as the cause of AIDS was one of the major scientific achievements during the last century. Here the events leading to this discovery are reviewed with particular attention to priority and actual contributions by those involved. Since I would argue that discovering HIV was dependent on the previous discovery of the first human retrovirus HTLV-I, the history of this discovery is also re-examined. The first human retroviruses (HTLV-I) was first reported by Robert C. Gallo and coworkers in 1980 and reconfirmed by Yorio Hinuma and coworkers in 1981. These discoveries were in turn dependent on the previous discovery by Gallo and coworkers in 1976 of interleukin 2 or T-cell growth factor as it was called then. HTLV-II was described by Gallo's group in 1982. A human retrovirus distinct from HTLV-I and HTLV-II in that it was shown to have the morphology of a lentivirus was in my mind described for the first time by Luc Montagnier in an oral presentation at Cold Spring Harbor in September of 1983. This virus was isolated from a patient with lymphadenopathy using the protocol previously described for HTLV by Gallo. The first peer reviewed paper by Montagnier's group of such a retrovirus, isolated from two siblings of whom one with AIDS, appeared in Lancet in April of 1984. However, the proof that a new human retrovirus (HIV-1) was the cause of AIDS was first established in four publications by Gallo's group in the May 4th issue of Science in 1984.
Background
Unfortunately the omission of the American scientist Robert C. Gallo from the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for the discovery of HIV by many has been viewed as a final scientific verdict handed down by the Nobel committee of the Karolinska Institutet on an old controversy between the Institute Pasteur and NIH and that previous settlements were for political reasons only. Also, the decision to omit Gallo has resulted in the resurrection of false allegations in the media that Gallo and coworkers at NIH had rediscovered or even stolen the French HIV isolate previously sent to them from the Pasteur Institute. Thus, it could be interpreted as if the Nobel committee finally had put right an unjust settlement previously obtained between the French and American scientific groups. There is no doubt or controversy about the fact that the French group was first to isolate this new virus. This is what the Nobel committee chose to award.
Two years ago I had the privilege to painstakingly and thoroughly go through all the literature related to the discovery of HIV. Since the motivation for the Prize by the Nobel Committee is very limited and the fact that the Committee members cannot comment on how they came to their decision, I think it is important that the medical community gets the correct historical facts about this important discovery. Therefore, I have written this article. I would say that what I present below is a fair and accurate account on the events and work that led to the discovery of a new virus as the cause of AIDS. Regarding whom should get the credit for the discovery of HIV, this review should enable the reader to come to his or her own conclusion. Mine, however, is different from that of those of my fellow faculty members that presently make up the Nobel Committee for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. I will here show that by going through the literature it is evident that Gallo's group was not only first to show that HIV is the cause of AIDS but that the French group had not been able to discover this new virus without the active assistance of, as well as, previous work by Gallo. It will also be evident that Gallo and his associates had no reason to "steal" any French isolate. Last year this journal published another account of the 2008 Nobel Prize [1].
Paving the way for the discovery of HIV
Isolation of a virus means infection, propagation and (usually cell free) transmission of an infectious agent in cultured cells. New viruses, for which there are no susceptible cells in culture, have lately also been detected solely by molecular techniques, e.g. hepatitis C virus by using a random-primed complementary DNA library from an infected patient (Michael Houghton) and subtypes of human papilloma viruses by using hybridization under low stringency and subsequent DNA cloning (Harald zur Hausen).
The difficulty in isolating a new virus is choosing the right cell culture and detection systems and to obtain specimens containing the virus. With a susceptible cell culture system and a detection system available, isolation of a new virus is not only possible but also rather straightforward. In the case of HIV, before the successful isolation of the first human retrovirus (human T-cell leukemia virus, now human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I; HTLV-I) by Robert C. Gallo [2], neither was at hand.
After the discovery of reverse transcriptase from animal oncogenic RNA viruses (then called oncorna viruses and now called retroviruses) a large number of publications on putative discoveries of retrovirus detections in human malignancies appeared in the early 1970-ties. However, they were all either owing to contaminations in the laboratories with animal retroviruses or the mitochondrial DNA-polymerase γ, the latter when the reports were based on reverse transcriptase activity alone. DNA-polymerase γ is a normal cellular DNA polymerase which uses RNA as a primer but not as a template. Therefore, like reverse transcriptase, the activity of DNA-polymerase γ was sensitive to a ribonuclease treatment [3–5]. This cellular enzyme was not known at the time. In 1972 Gallo's group [3] reported that stimulated normal human lymphocytes contained a ribonuclease sensitive DNA polymerase distinct from viral RNA-directed DNA polymerase, an enzyme that Gallo's group characterized further in a number of publications. The enzyme prefers Mn2+. Unlike DNA polymerases α and β, the preferred primer-template for DNA-polymerase γ is (dT)≅15·(A)n over (dT)≅15·(dA)n! This third cellular DNA polymerase was independently from Gallo discovered by Art Weissbach and they later named it DNA-polymerase γ[6].
From the numerous and erroneous reports on retroviruses in various human cancers, the notion of human cancer viruses became in ill repute and rather than talking of "human tumor viruses" people in science talked of "human rumor viruses". In fact, as narrated by Gallo in one of his reviews[7], when Gallo first submitted their report on HTLV-I to Journal of Virology it was rejected right away by the editor Robert Wagner "insisting that they should cease, and not continue to perpetuate the controversy, strongly implying that we all know human retroviruses do not exist".
In his quest to find a human retrovirus in lymphoma/leukemia Gallo developed sensitive and generalized techniques for the detection of reverse transcriptase to discriminate it from cellular DNA polymerases [8, 9].
To isolate T cell lymphotropic viruses one needs to be able to culture T lymphocytes. Working with conditioned medium to grow lymphocytes, Gallo together with two of his post doctorial fellows Doris Morgan, Frank Ruscetti discovered T cell growth factor (TCGF) later named interleukin 2 (IL-2). Hence, the first report of IL-2/TCGF was by Robert Gallo was published in 1976 [10]. The first paper by Kendal A. Smith on IL-2/TCGF did not appear before 1978[11].
I sincerely doubt that anyone would have been looking for a retrovirus as the etiological agent for AIDS had HTLV-I not previously been isolated. I will therefore shortly recapitulate the history of the discovery of this virus.
The evolution of HIV-1 and the origin of AIDS
Paul M Sharp 1,*, Beatrice H Hahn 2,3
The major cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). We have been using evolutionary comparisons to trace (i) the origin(s) of HIV-1 and (ii) the origin(s) of AIDS. The closest relatives of HIV-1 are simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) infecting wild-living chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in west central Africa. Phylogenetic analyses have revealed the origins of HIV-1: chimpanzees were the original hosts of this clade of viruses; four lineages of HIV-1 have arisen by independent cross-species transmissions to humans and one or two of those transmissions may have been via gorillas. However, SIVs are primarily monkey viruses: more than 40 species of African monkeys are infected with their own, species-specific, SIV and in at least some host species, the infection seems non-pathogenic. Chimpanzees acquired from monkeys two distinct forms of SIVs that recombined to produce a virus with a unique genome structure. We have found that SIV infection causes CD4+ T-cell depletion and increases mortality in wild chimpanzees, and so the origin of AIDS is more ancient than the origin of HIV-1. Tracing the genetic changes that occurred as monkey viruses adapted to infect first chimpanzees and then humans may provide insights into the causes of the pathogenicity of these viruses.
Keywords: human immunodeficiency virus type 1, simian immunodeficiency virus, chimpanzee, gorilla, adaptation, tetherin
1. Introduction
The acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first formally recognized in patients in the USA in 1981. Subsequent characterization of the principal causative agent, human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), revealed that it was a retrovirus. As strains of HIV-1 were sampled from around the world, it became apparent that they exhibit extremely high genetic heterogeneity and that analysis of the evolution of this diversity can reveal insights into the prehistory of the virus (Sharp et al. 2001). HIV-1 strains can be divided into three distinct groups, which have very different prevalences. Groups N and O are rare, and largely restricted to Cameroon and surrounding countries. The vast majority (perhaps 98%) of HIV infections worldwide are caused by HIV-1 group M. Even within group M, there is very high diversity and the epicentre of that diversity is in Africa and in particular Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Vidal et al. 2000). While HIV-1 has an extremely fast rate of evolution, the virus must have circulated within human populations for many years before it was first recognized for this extent of diversity to have accumulated. Using molecular clocks, the common ancestor of HIV-1 group M strains has been dated to around the 1920s (Korber et al. 2000; Worobey et al. 2008). Partial characterization (Zhu et al. 1998; Worobey et al. 2008) of two viruses from samples initially obtained around 1960 in Kinshasa (then called Leopoldville) has shown that HIV-1 group M had already diversified substantially by that time, corroborating this time scale, and pointing to the location of the early diversification of these viruses (Sharp & Hahn 2008).
At the time when HIV-1 was first described, the closest known relative was visna, a virus from sheep that is the prototypic member of the genus Lentivirus. Additional lentiviruses were soon found in other primates, and a second virus (HIV-2) was found infecting humans. The viruses from non-human primates were termed simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs). Among the first species to be found to be naturally infected were African green monkeys (Chlorocebus species), where the prevalence of infection is high (greater than 50% of adults) and natural infections appear to be non-pathogenic. The number of different SIVs identified has increased steadily over the past 20 years. Currently, around 40 different primate species have been found to harbour SIVs, though information regarding prevalence and pathogenicity is lacking for most. So far, SIVs have only been found naturally infecting primates in sub-Saharan Africa, though the extent to which Asian or new world primates have been surveyed is unclear. Where multiple strains of SIVs have been characterized from a single species, they generally form a monophyletic clade, indicating that the great majority of transmissions are intraspecific. The primate viruses as a whole, including HIV-1 and HIV-2, form a distinct clade within the lentiviruses, indicating that humans acquired their infections from other primates (Bailes et al. 2002). Phylogenetic analyses of these primate lentiviruses have provided remarkably detailed insights into the evolutionary origins of the human viruses.
https://www.britannica.com/science/AIDS/The-origin-of-HIV
https://copilot.microsoft.com/chats/gCC22MupZgFjTEaWJKgvg
anything special about retrovirus
Indeed, retroviruses have some unique and fascinating features:
Unique Characteristics of Retroviruses
Reverse Transcriptase: Retroviruses possess an enzyme called reverse transcriptase, which allows them to transcribe their RNA into DNA. This process is unique and crucial for the replication of retroviruses.
Integration into Host Genome: The DNA formed by reverse transcription is integrated into the host cell's genome. This integration can lead to long-term persistence of the virus within the host, and in some cases, it can activate oncogenes, leading to cancer.
Provirus Formation: The integrated viral DNA, known as a provirus, can remain latent within the host cell for long periods. This latent state allows the virus to evade the immune system and antiviral treatments.
High Mutation Rate: Retroviruses have a high mutation rate due to the lack of proofreading ability of reverse transcriptase. This high mutation rate allows the virus to adapt quickly to changes in the host environment and develop resistance to antiviral drugs.
Enveloped Virus: Retroviruses are enveloped viruses, meaning they have a lipid membrane derived from the host cell. This envelope contains viral proteins essential for infecting new cells.
Impact on Scientific Research
Retroviruses have significantly impacted scientific research, particularly in the fields of virology and molecular biology. Some notable contributions include:
Gene Therapy: Retroviral vectors are used in gene therapy to deliver therapeutic genes into host cells.
Understanding Cancer: The study of retroviruses has provided insights into the mechanisms of cancer development, especially through the identification of oncogenes.
Vaccine Development: Research on retroviruses has advanced the development of vaccines and antiviral therapies.
Examples of Retroviruses in Research
Rous Sarcoma Virus (RSV): One of the first retroviruses discovered to cause cancer in chickens, leading to the discovery of oncogenes.
Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus (MMTV): Used in research to study breast cancer development.
Retroviruses are not just pathogens; they are powerful tools in scientific research and biotechnology. Their unique characteristics continue to provide valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms of diseases and potential therapeutic approaches.
If you have any more questions or need further details, feel free to ask!
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