HIV's Mutations to Avoid Immune Defenses Can Be Passed to Wider
Population, Study Says February 26, 2009 HIV can adapt rapidly
to evade immune system responses, and these mutations can be
passed on in the wider population, according to a study
published Thursday in the journal Nature, Reuters reports.
Although researchers have known that HIV constantly mutates
within an individual person, the new study indicates that these
mutations that help the virus attack immune cells are
increasingly passed to large groups in the population. According
to the researchers, the virus' ability to mutate rapidly likely
will pose significant challenges for the development of an HIV
vaccine (Kahn, Reuters, 2/25). According to Goulder, the study
indicates that "[e]ven in the short time that HIV has been in
the human population, it is doing an effective job of evading
our best efforts at natural immune control of the virus." He
added, "This is high-speed evolution that we're seeing in the
space of just a couple of decades." In ad