The Human Immunodeficiency Virus Biology, Epidemiology,...

The Human immunodeficiency virus: Biology, Epidemiology, and Pathogenesis Only a few diseases in modern history have been so devastating and impose a direct global public health threat to be referred to as â€Å"The modern plague† [1, 2]. The Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is considered to be the causative agent of one of the deadliest pandemics our generation have witnessed collecting over 30 million lives worldwide since the 1980s [3], with 3.4 million children under the age of 15 living with the virus as of 2012 [4]. In 1983, HIV has been linked to the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) by Robert Gallo and his collaborators in a series of four papers published in Science magazine [5, 6]. Since then, research has been targeting†¦show more content†¦In general, the two main types are classified as HIV-1 and HIV-2 [12], and while both types appear to have the same clinical manifestations, HIV-2 tends to have a lower transmission rate upon effective contact (direct contact between infectious and susceptible individuals) and a lowe r incubation period (the time period between infection and clinical symptoms) [13-15]. HIV-2 is rarely found outside of West Africa which prompts the public to imply HIV-1 when talking about HIV in public literature worldwide [16]. HIV-1 is further divided into groups based on their close phylogenetic association with the Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) which is also a retrovirus capable of infecting around 45 species of primates [17, 18]. HIV-1 subtypes include groups M, N, O, P, with Group M (which stands for Major) encompassing over 90% of HIV-1 infections worldwide and is believed to be closely related to the SIVcpz isolated from the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) [10, 19]. Other groups of HIV-1 appear to be less prevalent and geographically limited centered in west-central Africa with groups O and P showing phylogenetic similarities with SIVgor isolated from the Western Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) [20, 21]. Analysis of HIV-1 has led to further create subtypes within grou p M based on the geographic prevalence, with subtypes