HIV-like virus found in Indian monkeys

[Guest guest]

Indian Express 15 April 2002

PUNE INSTITUTE STUDY SHOWS HIV-TYPE STRAINS IN JODHPUR LANGURS

Pallava Bagla

New Delhi, April 14 No need to panic but the AIDS virus may have been

born closer home than you think. Research by an Indian Council of

Medical Research (ICMR) team has found a simian or monkey form of the

virus in ''Hanuman langurs'' in Jodhpur, indicating that HIV-1 could

have originated in India around the same time as it did in Africa.

They say this is good news for those hunting for a cure and even have

a name for the virus: 'Hanuman virus' (after the langurs). But at

this, Union Health Minister C P Thakur has put his foot down.

Confirming the finding, Thakur said it had major implications but

there was no calling the virus Hanuman, ''who is such a revered God

of the Hindus''. ''I have told them to make their way forward very

carefully,'' he said.

Now the ICMR is building a hi-tech, biologically safe, Rs 75-crore

facility at Sunamgarh on the outskirts of Mumbai. The langurs will be

used to develop a vaccine in collaboration with the US-based

International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

The exact origin of the HIV virus - which has killed around 22

million people - is still shrouded in doubt. The most accepted view

is that the virus first originated as simian immunodeficiency virus

(SIV) in Africa in non-human primates like chimpanzees and then

jumped the species barrier to infect humans.

Till this research, not a single case of SIV had been reported in

India and experts believed AIDS was imported here.

But the five-year research of Jayshree S. Nandi of the National

Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, on the Jodhpur langurs is set to

change that. Nandi carried out extensive studies both in stored

tissue samples at NIV and, along with S M Mohnot of the Jodhpur

Primate Research Centre, on Hanuman langurs in Rajasthan, before she

stumbled upon ''distant cousins of HIV''. Interestingly, animals

infected with this virus do not show any symptoms of the monkey

version of AIDS, nor does it infect humans.

ICMR Director General Nirmal K. Ganguly says the finding was

confirmed by an Indo-French team last month.

Based on the research, Nandi believes HIV-1 originated in India

around the same time as it did in Africa. She points out it had ample

opportunities to jump the species barrier since in India, monkeys -

especially Hanuman langurs and rhesus macaques - live close to human

habitation. In addition, certain tribes are known to eat monkey

flesh.

The positive side to the discovery is it may help develop ''the

Indian AIDS vaccine''. Says Ganguly: ''It actually offers a new

Indian animal model to test and develop the AIDS vaccine.'' As none

of the native Indian monkeys were so far known to harbour any form of

the AIDS virus, all experiments had to be conducted either on

imported African monkeys or carried out in the West.

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