Super Aids

[The Gentleman Scamp]

As yet is has no official name as there have only been four cases diagnosed and all in New York.

Basically, it is AIDS without the incubation period and from transmission, accelerates to full blown AIDS and death within two to three days... I also heard that it can be transmitted almost as easily as SARS and that one of the victims was a doctor who made the diagnosis who died before the patient, however, I don't know if this is true or not.

I was told this from a usually reliable scource but have heard nothing else on it, does anybody have any related info or links?

Bad news indeed if it is true - it would appear that mother nature has cranked the dial up as we have not yet got the mesage from existing AIDS, or maybe we have but it is not controlling the populus as God intended.

[Darknight]

moved to health forum

[pedro01]

As yet is has  no official name as there have only been four cases diagnosed and all in New York.

Basically, it is AIDS without the incubation period and from transmission, accelerates to full blown AIDS and death within two to three days...  I also heard that it can be transmitted almost as easily as SARS and that one of the victims was a doctor who made the diagnosis who died before the patient, however, I don't know if this is true or not.

I was told this from a usually reliable scource but have heard nothing else on it, does anybody have any related info or links?

Bad news indeed if it is true - it would appear that mother nature has cranked the dial up as we have not yet got the mesage from existing AIDS, or maybe we have but it is not controlling the populus as God intended.

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Get a grip scamp. Catches like a cold & death within 3 days...

Reliable source - not 'bloke down the pub' was it ?

This is what you are talking about.

"The infected man, gay and in his 40's, tested negative for H.I.V. in May 2003, then tested positive last December, health officials said. Investigators believe he may have contracted the virus in October when he engaged in unprotected anal sex with multiple partners while using crystal methamphetamine. By last month, it was clear that three of the four classes of anti-retroviral drugs used against H.I.V. were not working in this case, and the man showed signs of AIDS, including rapid weight loss, a high level of the virus in his bloodstream, and a depleted supply of crucial immune system cells"

This is a far cry from being passed like sars & killing in 3 days, no ?

[Wolfie]

Bad news indeed if it is true

Which it isnt, if it were true then the media would have hold of it already and it would be front page news on pratically every news media in the world.

I'd stop worrying scamp, no really.. tis a load of b*****s

[The Gentleman Scamp]

I am not worrying, I didn't say I was worrying and I didn't hint that I was worried - I merely thought it would be of interest which iswhy I started the post.

My personal theory is that it is an exaggerated urban myth that stemmed from a 'rare' case of somebody contracting full blown AIDS in a very short period of time.

My source by the way, was a bloke down the pub - pretty much, hence the lack of concern.

[pedro01]

I am not worrying, I didn't say I was worrying and I didn't hint that I was worried - I merely thought it would be of interest which iswhy I started the post.

My personal theory is that it is an exaggerated urban myth that stemmed from a 'rare' case of somebody contracting full blown AIDS in a very short period of time.

My source by the way, was a bloke down the pub - pretty much, hence the lack of concern.

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Scamp - we can still read your original post, dude !

Sounds like you were fished-in by old matey down the pub. A bit too late to deny it. "Mother nature cranked up the dial" eh ?

Reliable source, eh ? Not that you beleived it...

Any more pub tales you'd like to tell us about ? At least check 'em out on a worthy news site first.

Or perhaps, as an aspiring writer - this is the only way you can your words get in print...

[johnh101]

I read that it has appeared on 4 or 5 occasions recently and always the victim is a user of Crystal methamphetamine.

[Wolfie]

care to post a link the the article, johnh101?

[RDN]

Surely, if you're dead within 3 days, it's not a big problem is it? Well, not for the rest of the world, anyways.

[RDN]

Scamp.... PLEASE change that avatar! I have to hold my hand over it while trying to read your posts... Most annoying. 

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Pot, kettle, black

[John K]

Scamp.... PLEASE change that avatar! I have to hold my hand over it while trying to read your posts... Most annoying. 

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Pot, kettle, black

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no comparison.

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What I have seen on it was one news article. I think it was HIV went to AIDS fast, but as for death in a few days.. I think that is wrong. AIDS does not kill you, it simply lets other things kill you. I would be more concerned about the Bird flu at this point, that for sure kills in a few days.

[Insight]

Here's the source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4260467.stm

Only one case reported in New York, generated to full blown Aids within months, not days. The rest is all thankfully folly (including the doctor dying).

[Darknight]

Here's the source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4260467.stm

Only one case reported in New York, generated to full blown Aids within months, not days. The rest is all thankfully folly (including the doctor dying).

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So why don't we talk about a snake bite then? lot more common and they can kan kill in an half hour for certain species.

or balcony jumpers? only takes 5 seconds

[RDN]

So why don't we talk about a snake bite then? lot more common and they can kan kill in an half hour for certain species.

or balcony jumpers? only takes 5 seconds 

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I've never gone to bed with a snake.

[The Gentleman Scamp]

Oh I have.

Can't remember her name... Ping or something.

[RDN]

Oh I have.

Can't remember her name...  Ping or something.

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Close! I don't want to bring back painful memories, but...

[pautai]

The New York Patient: A Harbinger of Super Aggressive HIV?

New York City health officials announced on February 11, 2005 that a patient rapidly developed full-blown AIDS shortly after being diagnosed with a rare, drug-resistant strain of HIV-1. The New York City Department of Health issued an alert to all hospitals and doctors and a press conference was held to announce the emergence of an aggressive HIV-1 strain that may be difficult to treat and that appears to trigger rapid progression to AIDS.

Is the panic justified?

The two phenomena of rapid disease progression and multi-drug resistance, which are combined in the aggressive HIV-1 strain, are not unique. HIV-1 causes a persistent infection and this virus is generally not a fast killer.

Within the Amsterdam Cohort Studies on HIV-AIDS, it takes on average 8.3 years from the time a person is first infected with HIV-1 for AIDS to develop, and another 17 months from AIDS to death. However, the length of the incubation period varies from 2 months to more than 20 years.

Cases where it takes much shorter are not uncommon (rapid-progressors), and likewise there is a significant group of so-called long-term non-progressors.

There seems uncertainty about the actual date of infection of the New York individual, such that AIDS may actually not have developed within 2 to 3 months, but rather within 20 months, which makes this case less exotic.

Transmission of a drug-resistant HIV-1 variant is not uncommon either. The number of cases has remained relatively small, but may be on the rise due to an increase in therapy failures.

The New York virus appeared resistant to three classes of antivirals (the reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs); nucleoside and non-nucleoside drugs (NNRTIs), as well as protease inhibitors), but this is not unexpected either in the era of combination-therapy in which therapy failure will usually mean the emergence of multi-drug resistant HIV-1 variants.

Drug-resistant HIV-1 variants usually have reduced replication capacity compared to a wild-type virus due to the mutations in the reverse transcriptase and protease enzymes. This loss in replication fitness may be even larger for a multi-drug resistant virus.

How does this relate to the aggressive disease course? More research is needed to resolve this issue. First, it is not always true that the acquisition of drug-resistance mutations causes a fitness loss. Even in case a loss is apparent, the virus may select compensatory changes over time, and the end result may in fact be a virus variant with increased replication fitness.

Second, one can only link a particular pathogenicity phenotype to a virus strain when a distinct disease pattern is seen in multiple infected persons. When an isolated case is discussed, it is equally possible that the particular disease pattern is not due to the virus, but rather due to a special property of the infected human host. Person-to-person variation in the immune system or other factors that interact with HIV-1 (receptors, innate immune factors etc) can greatly influence disease progression.

The authors note in conclusion, ”Overall, this case seems relatively rare but not necessarily alarming. Increased attention is not necessarily bad, but press conferences should be reserved for situations when a cluster of such transmissions is apparent.”

“The current hype about super aggressive HIV-1 strains seems unfounded.”

Department of Human Retrovirology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

04/06/05

Reference

B Berkhout, A de Ronde and L van der Hoek. Aggressive HIV-1? Retrovirology 2: 13. Published online February 28, 2005.

[The Gentleman Scamp]

Oh I have.

Can't remember her name...  Ping or something.

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Close! I don't want to bring back tawdry memories, but...

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[RDN]

... tawdry...

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