Tópico: Origem e epidemia do HIV/AIDS

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Ouvindo uns podcasts garimpados do arquivo do "quirks and quarks", fiquei sabendo de uma teoria para a origem da epidemia da AIDS que não conhecia, através do uso de antibióticos para outras doenças.

Indiretamente, apenas. Mais especificamente, o reaproveitamento de agulhas era comum, praticamente não haviam médicos, e ao mesmo tempo as primeiras epidemias de HIV/AIDS começaram coincidentemente na mesma época.

O reaproveitamento de agulhas é importante porque, uma vez que uma pessoa tenha adquirido isoladamente o SIV (Vírus da Imunodeficiência Simiana), ele não é imediatamente transmissível para outra pessoa. Precisa evoluir mais tempo em hospedeiros humanos até se adaptar, e isso é facilitado ao ter uma transmissão assistida pelo compartilhamento de seringas que estavam sendo usadas para vacinas.

Outros pontos que fortalecem a teoria é o fato de que não existe apenas um HIV, mas ao menos HIV1 e HIV2, o primeiro originário dos chimpanzés e o segundo de um tipo de "mico" mais aparentado dos mandris, babuínos e das macacas cujo nome popular português eu desconheço (mangabey), ao mesmo tempo em que as infeções primárias de humanos com o SIV não devem ser tão recente, ou seja, pelo simples contato natural, sem a ajuda da transmissão por agulhas, talvez fosse de se esperar que epidemias de HIV fossem mais antigas.



HIV Hypothesis

For a virus that affects more than forty million people, we don't know much about the origins of HIV. We know that it emerged from Africa sometime after 1950 and that it's related to Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV). But we don't really understand how it could have made the jump from monkeys and apes into humans.

A new hypothesis, recently published in the Lancet, suggests a link between the origin of HIV and the introduction of injectable antibiotics to Africa. Dr. Ernest Drucker from the Montefiore Medical Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York says needles for injecting penicillin were reused without proper sterilization and could allow SIV to move from person to person, gradually mutating into what we know of today as HIV.

If his hypothesis is correct, then the problem still exists today, and may lead to new diseases coming out of Africa.

http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/01-02/mp3/qq221201a.mp3


http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/index.html


Origin of AIDS
Broadcast Monday 27 November 2000 
with Norman Swan

Summary:
Dr Ernie Drucker believes that AIDS may have its origin in unsterile hypodermic needles and antibiotics.

Transcript:
Norman Swan: Since the AIDS epidemic hit the developed world just over 15 year ago, there have been many theories about where the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, and the epidemic came from.

The first idea was that amyl nitrate, a recreational drug used by gay men was the cause. After that, and indeed since, the focus has been on Africa with the assumption being that a species jump from monkeys to humans alongside decolonisation which opened up remote Africa, were the key factors.

More recently, contaminated polio vaccine allegedly given to Africans in the ‘50s has been blamed as the culprit.

But Dr Ernie Drucker, Professor of Epidemiology and Social Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, believes it’s something else entirely, related to two technologies: hypodermic needles and antibiotics.

Ernie Drucker has had a long interest in illicit drug use particularly heroin and cocaine and has pushed long and hard for AIDS prevention through the provision of clean needles.

He’s with me in the studio now: welcome back to Australia, Ernie.

Ernie Drucker: Good to be here.

Norman Swan: Ernie, take us through this theory.

Ernie Drucker: Well basically [...]

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s217997.htm