Chimpanzees Do Die From Simian AIDS, Study Finds

Chimp 099 with her daughter in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, in early 2006. She died in November 2006 from complications of a spinal cord injury. Her body was one of three bodies of S.I.V.cpz-infected chimpanzees that were subject to post-mortem analysis.

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
NYT

For the first time, scientists have shown that chimpanzees in the wild become sick and die from the simian version of AIDS.

The finding upsets a widely held scientific belief that chimpanzees, the closest relatives to humans, can get the virus that causes simian AIDS but without harm.

It also suggests that an outbreak of AIDS is contributing to the declining chimpanzee population in Africa, said the leader of the research team, Dr. Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

She said that comparisons of the viruses that cause AIDS in chimpanzees and humans could lead to new insights into the responses of the immune systems in both species.

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