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University of Montpellier (France), 19 November: Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), the ape-like form of HIV, may be endemic in wild gorilla populations, a Brief Communication in this week's Nature suggests. The animals are still hunted for food and medicinal uses, so it's possible that these practices might pose a risk to humans.

Martine Peeters and colleagues analyzed hundreds of fecal samples taken from chimpanzees and gorillas living in remote forest regions of Cameroon. Samples from both species contained antibodies that were reactive against HIV-1, but RNA analysis indicated that the gorillas were infected with a different strain of SIV that is closely related to an HIV-1 lineage (group O) found in humans in west central Africa.

Because the gorillas lived nearly 400 kilometers apart, it's likely that SIV infection is endemic in gorillas, as it is in chimpanzees. And the authors suspect that chimpanzees were the original reservoir of immunodeficiency viruses now found in chimpanzees, gorillas and humans. The survey focused on the western species of gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), and it's not yet known whether SIV is prevalent in the eastern species (Gorilla beringei). Additional field studies are needed to establish the scale of the problem in wild gorillas.

(ResearchSEA)