Essex’s erroneous research spawned the theory that HIV originated in African monkeys. This misconception is critical because the concept is a pillar for the fallacy that HIV/AIDS is endemic in Africa.

In 1985, it was Essex and his team of investigators that “discovered” an “AIDS-like” virus in the blood sample of wild-caught African green monkeys (AGM). This “AIDS-like” virus eventually came to be called SIV, the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus; even though it did not cause immunodeficiency in African green monkeys.

AIDS was a hot topic at that time; the discovery of SIV by the Essex team was instant front-page news worldwide. Both scientists and the public were striving to make sense of this terrifying mystery, and the impact of this initial media acclaim continues to reverberate throughout the medical and mainstream media today, as well as adversely affecting HIV/AIDS and general health care interventions in Africa.

Yet, in 1988 – only 3 years later – the truth came out! SIV was not from Africa! SIV was not a new virus! Rather, what was thought to be SIV was actually another virus, which had contaminated the blood samples of the African Green monkeys.

This contaminating virus originally came from Rhesus macaque monkeys. As a species, Rhesus macaques originated in Asia, but these particular Rhesus macaques were residents of the United States, and lived at the New England Regional Primate Research Center (NEPRC) in Southborough, Massachusetts, where various species of primates were housed and bred for the purpose of medical experimentation.

Several months prior to the discovery of “SIV,” a researcher at NEPRC, Phyllis Kanki, had isolated the virus from 4 sick Rhesus macaques monkeys. She then gave Max Essex a sample. Three years later, another group of investigators compared the genetic structures of SIV (“discovered” by Essex) and the virus from Rhesus macaques. Genetically, the two viruses were 99% identical; meaning they were the same virus. The viruses Kanki had given Essex had contaminated the blood samples of the wild-caught AGMs in the team Essex laboratory (the blood samples but not the monkeys were brought over from Africa).

In 1988, Nature, the leading interdisciplinary scientific journal, published a letter by Essex admitting this contamination and its source. Nature also published the genetic analysis that exposed the contamination. However, both the admission and the genetic analysis seemed to pass unnoticed by the medical and scientific community at large – even though Nature followed up several months later with a short editorial entitled “Human AIDS Virus Not From Monkeys”.

Nonetheless, 6 months after Essex’s letter of admission was published in Nature, Scientific American – a magazine of far greater distribution – published an article co-written by Essex and Kanki entitled “The Origins Of The AIDS Virus” which featured a full-page, color photo of the African green monkey.

Thus, the theory that HIV originated in Africa primates perpetuated. This theory changed over time as the species identified as the source of HIV’s progenitor shifted from AGMs to sooty mangabeys to the common chimpanzee, the chimpanzee currently bearing the crown stamped “Origin of AIDS.” To date, dozens of SIVs have been isolated from at least 30 species of African primates, none of them causing immunodeficiency; nevertheless, they all are labeled “closely related” to HIV by the investigators who discovered them.

This categorical use of the misnomer “immunodeficiency” in this crop of viruses reflects the “plight” of virologists. To get funding, it’s best to be working on a primate immunodeficiency virus. The situation is analogous to the height of the ‘War on Cancer’ in the 1970s. At that time, any virologists working on viruses labeled oncogenic (causing or inducing tumor formation) were viewed in particularly favorable light by funding agencies.

In relation to the current situation with HIV/AIDS, this prerogative continues to afflict HIV/AIDS research funding and interventions across many scientific, medical, and allied professional domains.

Given all the known retroviruses “closely related” to HIV derived from primates in Africa, it is ironic that only 2 primate retroviruses are known to induce an analogous immunodeficiency in their original hosts; and both these retroviruses and their hosts come from the United States. The first is SIVmac, the aforementioned virus isolated from Rhesus macaques by Phyllis Kanki. The second is HIV. HIV infects the primates called humans.

Phyllis Kanki originally isolated SIVmac from 4 Rhesus macaque monkeys which had an immunodeficiency syndrome with a “remarkable similarity” to human AIDS. As with human AIDS, the immunodeficiency experienced by these Rhesus macaques was characterized by opportunistic infections; namely, candidiasis, cytomegalovirus infection, and cryptosporidiosis — all diseases characteristic of human AIDS as well. The appearance of these diseases in humans and Rhesus macaques means that their respective viral infections both damage the defenses of cellular immunity. Cellular immunity defends the body against fungi, virus, and parasites, specific types of infections that flourish during HIV infection. The bacterial defense mechanism, humoral immunity, remains intact during early HIV infection.

Kanki’s discovery of SIVmac and “simian AIDS” raised no great acclaim. She soberly suggested that SIVmac and Rhesus macaque monkeys might be suitable models for experimentation and drug development; an appropriate suggestion, but it was not until after the same virus was “discovered” in African green monkeys that it received any fanfare.

An exuberant reader might theorize, given the geographic juxtaposition of SIVmac and HIV, that SIVmac and Rhesus macaques represent the origin of HIV and AIDS. However, SIVmac shares only about 50% genetic homology (‘relationship’) with HIV, and collectively, all the African primate retroviruses share about 50% genetic homology with HIV.

SIVmac shares about 75% genetic homology with all the African primate retroviruses. So, genetically, SIVmac is more closely related to the set of harmless Africa primate viruses than to HIV. What makes sense is that SIVmac is actually a virus of African origin brought over generations ago by captured African primates, and the Rhesus macaque monkeys were exposed to this African virus by living in close proximity to these African species within the cages of the U.S. research facility.

In truth, HIV stands alone among the primate viruses. All the other primate retroviruses are clustered together; having approximately 75% homology. HIV stands off to the side with 50% homology. However, HIV shares 40% – 50% homology with a set of well-characterized, pathogenic (disease-causing) retroviruses; namely retroviruses that infect ungulates (animals with hooves): horses, goats, sheep, and cattle.

Before HIV and the African primate fiasco, most known retroviruses were infectious agents that caused disease in the aforementioned animals of economic interest. At the advent of HIV, virologists working with these animal viruses attempted to draw parallels between these pathogenic animal retroviruses HIV. This comparison was easy to make because some of these animal viruses and HIV shared biological infectious processes, such as the induction of syncytia (a massive cell created by the fusion of many cells) and neurotropism (the ability to infect brain cells). (Retroviruses are also found in birds, mice, rats, pigs, and felines – both house cats and lions. Since the advent of HIV, many retroviruses under study have been renamed “immunodeficiency” viruses.)

But the theory that HIV and AIDS originated somewhere “way over there” was more palatable than any research that might associate HIV and AIDS with food and ranch animals. Which, in part, brings us to our current status of misconception.

Chris Jennings

HIV/AIDS Analyst

Publications:

• The HIV/AIDS Biological Primer

• HIV/AIDS – The Jennings Report: Redefining the Size, Scope, and Scale of the AIDS Epidemic by Forensic Review of the Medical Literature

• HIV/AIDS Statistics in the Republic of South Africa (RSA): An Analysis of HIV/AIDS Mortality comparing Death Counts, Surveillance Data, and Modeled Estimates

For More Information: www.healthalert.net

The fiery and calculatingly controversial Malema is now facing his second disciplinary hearing within the ANC in just over a year. In 2010, he was disciplined and warned about future pronouncements after open criticism of President Jacob Zuma and open support for Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Now, Malema has been accused by the ANC of ‘sowing divisions’ in the party and bringing it into disrepute by calling for a change of government in neighbouring Botswana.

At a first, inconclusive hearing, there was violence outside the ANC HQ with T-shirts bearing President Zuma’s face burned and violent clashes between Malema supporters and the police. Suddenly, the growing split between the President and his one-time supporter and protégé is the dominant issue in South African politics. Does Zuma decide government policy or does Malema?

This is particularly crucial for foreign policy. South Africa is a superpower in African terms and, along with Nigeria and Egypt, effectively represents Africa on the world stage. With the ANC victory in 1994 and inauguration of Nelson Mandela as President, the country had huge moral force and influence – it punched above its weight internationally. Now it appears punch drunk.

The Botswana affair was an embarrassment for Zuma, but there has been no high profile refutation of Malema’s comments. The Gaborone government maintained a dignified silence at presidential and ministerial level, though presidential spokesman Jess Ramsay labelled Malema’s comments ‘utter garbage’ – particularly the youth leader’s charge that Botswana was going to allow the United States to have a base and perhaps the HQ of Africom (the US military Africa Command) in Botswana.

But Botswana is not the only foreign policy area where South Africa is on the ropes. Over Libya it appears out for the count. In February this year, South Africa voted for UN Security Council Resolution 1973 which allows the use of ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians and the enforcement of a no-fly zone. It was clear when it was passed that the resolution was the green light for Western air raids against Gaddafi’s military installations, airfields and armour. The resolution would be used and has been used to provide air and other combat support for the Libyan groups now represented in the Transitional National Council (TNC). If South Africa’s Foreign Affairs ministry, minister and diplomats did not realise what they were voting for, then it says little for the brains behind foreign policy.

Over the last few months, South African statements on Libya have been muddled and are now critical of the use of force under the resolution – this stance is based on the principles of the now more or less defunct New Partnership for African Development initiative (Nepad) (launched and championed in name but not often in action by Thabo Mbeki). The Zuma government criticised Western bombing and called for the formation of a transitional government representing all sides to the conflict – ignoring Gaddafi’s human rights abuses and the unelected nature of his regime. South Africa tried to block the unfreezing of Libyan funds by the UN to enable them to be used for humanitarian purposes, but dropped opposition after US Secretary of States Hilary Clinton brought pressure to bear.

Zuma has been under pressure inside South Africa from those who are pragmatic and want a foreign policy position on Libya that does not set it apart from much of Africa and the world and from those, like the ever vocal Malema, who want out and out support for Gaddafi and criticism of the rebels and the West. What has resulted is vacillation and confusion. South Africa’s leaders have been allies of Gaddafi since 1994. Mandela praised him for his support for liberation in Africa and successive governments have feted him – despite his upstaging of Mbeki at the inaugural African Union summit in Durban in July 2002. They chose to stress his anti-imperialist credentials ignoring his divisive role in Africa – such as his support for Idi Amin in Uganda, which led to war with Tanzania, his frequent and unprincipled swapping of sides in the Western Sahara or his invasions of and mercenary meddling in West Africa’s wars, including Sierra Leone, Liberia and Chad in the 1980s and 1990s.

Libyan policy has been an embarrassment for many South Africans, but then so was Zimbabwe. The growing repression and violence by Mugabe and ZANU-PF was tolerated for too long. But despite the more constructive role in bringing about the transitional government agreement between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, South Africa has done little to encourage greater democracy and, in April 2010, there conflicting signals when Malema visited Zimbabwe and flouted his own government’s policy by openly attacking Tsvangirai and the MDC. He was reprimanded but again policy was seen to be drifting rudderless and vulnerable to every passing wave.

One reason for this drift is that since 1994, there has not been a strong Foreign Minister in office. The succession of weak or sleeping ministers (Alfred Nzo, Nkosozana Dlamini Zuma and now Maite Nkoana-Mashabane) has deprived foreign policy of a voice. For a long time, this was ameliorated by the presence as Deputy Minister of the astute and experienced Aziz Pahad, who kept an eye on foreign policy for Mandela and Mbeki – Mbeki being the main architect of foreign policy under Mandela and then during his own presidency. Now he’s gone and so has any coherence in foreign policy.

During the Cold War, a comparison was once made of US and Soviet foreign policy. It was said to understand US policy you had to be able to play poker; for Soviet policy knowledge of chess was vital. What you need to understand South Africa’s policy is snakes and ladders.

Keith Somerville

While much is written these days about South Africa’s relations with the world, reading about the relations with its neighbours seems sometimes to be more of a specialist pursuit. While of course everyone at home and abroad will hear about and have an opinion on the country’s relations with Zimbabwe, there is perhaps less discussion of neighbourly relations with its less belligerent friends across its borders.

The Southern African Customs Union, or SACU, met in Pretoria recently to discuss the crucial issue of how to share the profits from customs duties. The group usually puts its monies into a shared revenue fund, based in South Africa, and divides the proceeds between the countries. The members, including South Africa, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana, will then generally take a share of the profits based on revenues earned from trade.

However, with trade falling to low levels during the recent recession, the total profits have fallen, and each country is understandably keen to get what it feels is its fair share. In dispute is the so-called ‘revenuesharing formula’ which is used to divide and disburse the profits. The countries cannot seem to agree on a fair way to allocate the money, and delegates were engaged in heated discussions. Independent advice has been sought, in the form of the Australian-based Centre International Economics (CIE) Consultancy.

Delegates at the 10^th regional seminar of ACP-EU economic and social interest groups organised by the European economic and social committee (EESC) in Gaborone, Botswana, on June 28-30 debated the EPA negotiations with the SADC region.  The seminar also debated the impact of the financial and economic crisis on Africa, food security and the role of non-state actors in implementing the Cotonou Agreement.

The delegates stressed that the negotiations towards comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the fifteen countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should continue, but at the appropriate pace for the capacities of SADC countries and under certain conditions.

It was argued that the negotiations should be accompanied by measures to restructure SADC industries, encourage product diversification, the development of infrastructure and the modernisation of agricultural sectors so as to enable SADC countries to benefit fully from the opportunities of the EPAs.

Delegates also called for social and environmental chapters to be included in the future comprehensive EPAs and for institutional provisions for the involvement of non-state actors to be integrated into the agreements, following the example of the CARIFORUM-EC EPA.

Regarding the impact of the financial and economic crisis on Africa, participants stressed that the priority was damage control. Delegates regretted that the poorest and most vulnerable would suffer most and that Africa’s progress towards meeting the millennium development goals would be seriously undermined.

Participants called for existing aid commitments to Africa to be fulfilled and for possibilities of additional funding to be explored. The ACP-EU economic and social interest groups stressed the need to implement the ILO Global Jobs pact and promote job creation, social dialogue, decent work and social protection schemes.

The ACP-EU economic and social interest groups called for food security to be recognised as a human right and for a wide-ranging discussion to be opened on the treatment of the agricultural sector in international trade negotiations.

The capacities of farmers’ organisations and women’s and consumers’ associations should be reinforced and these actors effectively involved in the framing and implementation of agricultural policy.

The final topic discussed during the regional seminar was the involvement of non-state actors from the SADC region in the implementation of the Cotonou Agreement. Despite progress on involving non-state actors in recent years, participants called on their national authorities and the European commission to step up efforts to disseminate information on the Cotonou Agreement, organise effective non-state actor consultations and launch non-state actor capacity-building programmes as a matter of urgency.