With this virus variant, the main thing is to recognize the infection early and to start therapy very quickly: "VB variant" - for virulent subtype B - is an HI virus whose particular aggressiveness has now been examined for the first time and by a international research team in the scientific journal "Science". This virus appears to have evolved long before it was first described in 1992. It contains more than five hundred mutations, and these genetic changes initially gave the pathogen a noticeable advantage: it presumably spread from Amsterdam, especially in the Dutch homosexual scene. At least until the middle of the 2000s,from then on, however, it seems to be relatively stable to declining alongside the less aggressive virus strain. The reason may be that the more effective antiviral drugs that have since been used against AIDS also work quite well against the VB variant - provided they are administered early enough.

Joachim Müller-Jung

Editor in the feuilleton, responsible for the "Nature and Science" department.

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The VB virus is particularly dangerous because it multiplies extremely quickly and, if combated too late, apparently decimates the T cells that are essential for a functioning immune system in a very short time.

In the course of the British "Beehive" project, the VB viruses were genetically decoded from a total of 17 AIDS patients, mostly gay men, of whom only one comes from Belgium, one from Switzerland and the rest from the Netherlands.

Other clusters of VB infected people were identified outside of Amsterdam, bringing the total to at least 109.

According to the researchers, it is not possible to say exactly how the spread is actually happening in Europe because of the gaps in the gene sequencing.

One thing is clear: if left untreated, this variant reaches a viral load that is three and a half times as high as in infected people of the same age within the first two years. The infected people feel the consequences immediately: They lose the vital immune cells in the blood much more quickly and are therefore considerably more susceptible to further serious infections and cell degeneration. For comparison: With the "normal" HI virus, the number of CD4 T cells in the blood, which is decisive for the course of the disease, is reduced in 30 to 39 year olds to the critical value within three years after the diagnosis - you stick with it of the VB variant, this value can be reached in individual cases in nine months if left untreated. This acceleration effect is even greater in older infected people.

The scientists have not yet been able to say which mutations in detail and which molecular mechanisms cause the higher virulence.

The human immunodeficiency virus probably first jumped from primates to humans a hundred years ago in the African heartland, presumably in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Around 38 million people are currently living with the virus worldwide, and an estimated 33 million people have died from the immune deficiency pandemic.