Perfect Storm3 Dec 2021 21:35
Interesting reading
Perhaps CD4 testing will become ever more important
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001214z
“ Leading HIV and Covid researcher, Prof Penny Moore, says that two pandemics colliding has created a “perfect storm” in South Africa.
Prof Moore, from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa, is at the scientific front line of the mission to understand the threat that the Omicron variant poses to the world.
“Unfortunately in South Africa we have a massive HIV pandemic and many, many untreated people,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science programme.
“When these people have a SARS CoV-2 infection, there’s increased risk they’ll struggle to clear it. The longer a person has an infection, the higher the odds that the virus will pick up a mutation that somehow benefits it.
“This is one plausible explanation for how Omicron - and other variants - emerged.”
Prof Moore added that, wherever Omicron emerged, “it has properties that make it a risk for all of us - whether we're HIV positive or not.
“It was identified in South Africa, but it's now across the world. We see community transmission and transmissions that are not linked to sub-Saharan Africa. Blocking travel to our country makes it more scientifically difficult to tackle this project.”
Prof Moore added that the techniques and platforms developed for HIV research have accelerated scientists’ ability to understand Covid.
“We now need to transfer that sense of urgency back to HIV,” she told the BBC.
You can listen to Professor Moore’s full interview with BBC science correspondent Victoria Gill on Inside Science on BBC Sounds.“
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