A new virus similar to HIV “is ready to infect” humans

An obscure family of viruses, already endemic in wild African primates and known to cause deadly Ebola-like symptoms in some monkeys, is “poised to infect” humans, according to research from the University of Colorado Boulder. USA) published in the magazine «Cell». Although this type of arterivirus is already considered a threat to macaque monkeys, no human infections have been reported to date. And it is not known for sure what impact the virus would have on people if it jumped species. But the authors, evoking the parallels with HIV (whose precursor originated in African monkeys), call for vigilance: the world health community could prevent a new pandemic if the presence of arteriviruses is now monitored, both in animals and in humans. . “This animal virus has figured out how to gain access to human cells, multiply and escape some of the important immune mechanisms that we would expect to protect us from an animal virus. That’s pretty rare,” said lead author Sara Sawyer. “We should pay attention to it.” The virus has caused deadly outbreaks in captive macaque colonies since the 1960s. There are thousands of unique viruses circulating among animals around the world, most of which cause no symptoms. In recent decades, an increasing number of them have jumped to humans, wreaking havoc on naïve immune systems inexperienced in fighting them: the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012, the acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus SARS-CoV) in 2003 and SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) in 2020. For 15 years, Sawyer’s lab has used laboratory techniques and tissue samples from wild animals from all over the world. the world to explore which animal viruses may be likely to jump to humans. For the latest study, they focused on arteriviruses, which are common among pigs and horses but poorly studied among nonhuman primates. Specifically, they studied the simian hemorrhagic fever virus (SHFV), which causes a deadly disease similar to that of the Ebola virus and has caused deadly outbreaks in colonies of captive macaques since the 1960s. The study shows that A molecule, or receptor, called CD163, plays a key role in the biology of simian arteriviruses, allowing the virus to invade and cause infection of target cells. Through a series of laboratory experiments, the researchers discovered, to their surprise, that the virus was also extraordinarily adept at latching onto the human version of CD163, entering human cells, and rapidly making copies of itself. Like the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and its precursor, the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), simian arteriviruses also appear to attack immune cells, disabling the main defense mechanisms and taking root in the body for a long time. term. “The similarities are profound between this virus and the simian viruses that gave rise to the HIV pandemic,” says researcher Cody Warren. The authors stress that another pandemic is not imminent and that the public should not be alarmed. But they suggest that the global health community prioritize further study of simian arteriviruses, develop blood antibody tests for them, and consider surveillance of human populations with close contact with carrier animals. A wide range of African monkeys already carry high viral loads of various arteriviruses, often without symptoms, and some species frequently interact with humans and have been known to bite and scratch people. “That we have not yet diagnosed an arterivirus infection in humans does not mean that no human has been exposed. We haven’t looked,” says Warren. Warren and Sawyer note that HIV was also unheard of in the 1970s. Related News Linda Gail Bekker standard No “We will not achieve control of the HIV/AIDS epidemic if we forget the most vulnerable groups” R. Ibarra The 24th World AIDS Conference is being held in Canada with an eye toward prevention and access to treatments and in the Covid-19 pandemic Researchers now know that HIV probably originated from infected non-human primates in Africa, and likely jumped to humans sometime in the early 20th century. Sawyer said there is no guarantee these simian arteriviruses will jump to humans. But one thing is for sure: more viruses will jump to humans, causing disease. “Covid is just the latest in a long series of animal-to-human spillover events, some of which have led to global catastrophes,” Sawyer notes. “Our hope is that by raising awareness of the viruses we need to watch out for, we can get ahead of this, so that if human infections start to happen, we’ll be aware quickly.”