New HIV Strain Could Cross the Atlantic? 5 Facts You Need to Know

It seems that a new strain of HIV has been discovered, and it's more dangerous than ever. Reported to progress to full-blown AIDS only within three years if left untreated, the "epidemic" affected Cuban patients who reported to have unprotected sex with multiple partners.

According to the Miami Herald, the newly discovered strain is a combination of three subtypes of the virus. It progresses very rapidly that researchers from Belgium's Catholic University of Leuven worry that patients infected may not be able to seek therapy until it is too late.

Here are some things you need to know about the new HIV strain:

1. It is no secret that HIV can mutate. The Miami Herald noted that Hector Bolivar of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine said that the research community has long known about this ability of the diseases and there are already more than 60 strains of HIV 1 existing in the world because of this. He said, "The only thing now is that in Cuba, it is associated with rapid progression [of the disease]. It's something that hasn't been seen before that clearly."

2. It has been reported that the fast progression of HIV is due to an already compromised immunological reponses of infected individuals, however, researchers led by Anne-Mieke Vandamme investigated patients and found that their immune systems are not to blame for the more aggressive infection, but rather, a new strain altogether. Vandamme said in an interview published in Voice of America, "Here we had a variant of HIV that we found only in the group that was progressing fast; not in the other two groups. We focused in on this variant and tried to find out what was different, and we saw it was a recombinant of three different subtypes."

3. A study published in the EBioMedicine journal noted that the new HIV strain may be more lethal to patients in the west, as it poses particular threats for those who have been infected with HIV. Although efforts to reduce infection rates of the disease has helped prolong lives with the help of antiretroviral drugs, the biggest concern from researchers and experts is that the virus may advance too fast to treat.

4. The new strain, according to Science Times, is a more aggressive form of the disease and will cut the window of treatment - on average it takes five to ten years before the virus infection becomes full-blown AIDS. With only three years for the disease to manifest in the new strain, researchers fear that without the early detection methods, antiretroviral therapy may prove too late.

5. What is very concerning is that mutated HIV viruses are also more difficult to diagnose, and could eventually become resistant to treatment, and developing a vaccine can prove more challenging.