Investigations have been underway in South Africa regarding the origins of the Beta and Omicron variants of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. In particular, the 8 million cases of HIV there makes for a significant reservoir of immune-compromised individuals, where the coronavirus might mutate over longer periods of time.
Now, a new study published in Science indicates that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) itself has created a nasty variant. A “virulent subtype B” (VB) variant of HIV has been discovered. Researchers from the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute have identified 109 cases of VB among 6,700 positive samples. “Individuals with the VB variant had a viral load between 3.5 and 5.5 times higher.” It is also more transmissible.
