Oxford scientists discover a new infectious and “severe” HIV variant
Scientists have discovered a stronger and more “severe” HIV variant in Europe. On 3 February, researchers from the University of Oxford announced that they found the “VB variant” within the Netherlands.
According to the published findings on Science.org, it has been silently spreading throughout the country for decades. The “aggressive” strain was first discovered in 2018 within samples from the BEEHIVE project.
The initiative was originally created to understand the evolution of the immunodeficiency virus. While analysing the array of samples, researchers stumbled on 17 HIV positive individuals that presented unusually high viral rates.
15 of the samples originated from the Netherlands, with the other two coming from Belgium and Switzerland. Shortly after the discovery, researchers looked into Dutch records and found 92 additional VB variant cases – which brought the total amount of individuals to 109.
