DIFFERENT strains of HIV develop in different parts of the body, a new study
suggests.
Joseph Eron from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and his
colleagues took HIV samples from 11 volunteers. In eight of the patients,
viruses from their blood showed a different pattern of drug resistance compared
with viruses taken from sperm cells.
The researchers will conclude in a forthcoming issue of AIDS Journal
that HIV found in the testes is made there and not imported by the blood. This
implies that doctors should treat the two HIV 鈥渃ompartments鈥� as separate
infections, they say.
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