HIV Digest	HIV Digest Archive

A common but harmless virus that can persist in the body for years appears to interfere with HIV, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests. Both GBV-C-- a virus common after puberty and probably spread through blood and sexual contact-- and HIV infect the same type of cells. But HIV-positive men who cleared GBV-C after five to six years died nearly three times faster than men who continued to show signs of GBV-C infection. Once GBV-C virus was gone, HIV seemed to attack with renewed vigor.

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The 10-year survival rate was 75 percent for those showing evidence

of GBV-C infection at both the one-and five-year marks, 39 percent among people never GBV-C infected, and 16 percent for those whose bodies had cleared GBV-C. However, GBV-C does not improve survival during the first 18 months after becoming HIV-infected. Only later does the benefit of GBV-C become apparent. GBV-C was once thought to be a cause of hepatitis.

The benign virus does not seem to block HIV acquisition, so it would not be a vaccine candidate.

In an Iowa study, nearly 2 percent of ostensibly healthy blood donors had GBV-C, and 13 percent of donors had evidence of past or present GBV-C infection.

Editor's Note: from Reuters