Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 2

Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 2

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Back in 1984, 3 years following the initial reports of an illness which was to become known as AIDS, researchers found the principal causative viral agent, the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). In 1986, another kind of HIV, known as HIV-2, was isolated from AIDS patients in West Africa, in which it might have been current decades before. Studies of the natural history of HIV-2 are restricted, but thus far comparisons with HIV-1 reveal some similarities while indicating differences. The two HIV-1 and HIV-2 have the very same modes of transmission and also therefore are connected with comparable opportunistic diseases and AIDS. In men infected with HIV-2, immunodeficiency appears to grow more gradually and to be milder. In comparison with men infected with HIV-1, people that have HIV-2 are less infectious early in the course of disease. As the disease progresses, HIV-2 infectiousness appears to increase; nonetheless, in comparison with HIV-1, the length of the greater infectiousness is briefer. HIV-1 and HIV-2 also differ in geographical patterns of disease; the United States has several documented cases.

Which countries have a higher incidence of HIV-2 disease?

HIV-2 infections are mostly located in Africa. West African countries with an incidence of HIV-2 of over 1 percent in the overall population are Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Other West African nations reporting HIV-2 are Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, São Tomé, Senegal, and Togo. Angola and Mozambique are several other African countries where the incidence of HIV-2 is greater than 1 percent.