South African Scientists To Study Link Between Variant Of COVID-19 And HIV

JAKARTA - South Africa's leading scientists will simultaneously investigate COVID-19 and HIV, amid growing evidence that a collision between the two could result in a new coronavirus variant.

The team at the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA), which first warned the world about the Omicron variant of COVID-19, said it was time for a 'systematic' investigation into what happens, when patients with untreated HIV become infected with COVID-19. 19.

A number of studies, including one published by the team last week, have found people with weakened immune systems, such as patients with untreated HIV, can suffer from persistent coronavirus infections, often for months.

Viruses remain in their system and accumulate mutations, some of which may provide an advantage.

Some researchers believe this could be how Omicron and some other variants of COVID developed, although other scientists believe it may have appeared in animals before spreading back to humans.

Tongai Maponga, lead author of the new paper and a researcher at Stellenbosch University, said he and his colleagues at NGS-SA were discussing more in-depth studies to support the hypothesis.

"Some of the cases so far that have been seen and described occurred simply because of random surveillance," he told Reuters, as quoted on Feb. 2.

"But I think we'll soon be doing something more systematic to look specifically at these HIV patients with severe immune systems, to see what's going on."

He said the work will focus on two elements: on patients and how their systems deal with COVID-19 infections, and on proving whether new variants are likely to emerge this way.

"If that's the case, we need to step up our game with how we diagnose these people, and ensure that they get a prompt diagnosis and treatment," he added.

Meanwhile, Saoirse Fitzpatrick, advocacy manager at StopAids said the pandemic has had a 'major' impact on HIV testing globally, but is important to address both public health challenges.

"The COVID response that ignores the HIV response is not an adequate public health approach," he explained. It is not clear how many patients are involved at this stage.

South Africa is known to have the largest HIV epidemic in the world, with 8.2 million people infected. Only about 71 percent of adults and 45 percent of children, are treated.

"We have to reiterate that we don't want to create unnecessary stigma around HIV - it's a risk we take by asking these questions, but I think we need to consider it," he added.