Thaw-thaw, a thriller about the resurgence of ancient parasites, is believed to have been seen by many friends. Inside the dense parasites must let the friends can not eat, scared to sleep at night.
And in recent days, Australian doctors said: an ancient virus is still widespread. It's-the human T-lymphococcal virus type 1 (human T-cell leukaemia virus type-1), or HTLV-1. for short.
HTLV-1 has a long history, and its DNA can even be found in Andean mummies 1, 500 years ago.
The virus, a distant relative of HIV, has a latent period of up to 15 to 30 years and can cause serious diseases, including nervous system diseases, uveitis and even bronchiectasis, as well as blood or other metastatic cancers.
Ninety-five percent of people will not develop after infection, but once the disease can have a very high death rate. It can be transmitted through mother-to-child transmission, blood transmission and sexual transmission.
But the virus has a quirk: it's more deadly to men! Vincent Jansen, a professor at the University of London in the UK, explains that the virus is less lethal to women because it wants to spread from mother to child.
In remote central Australia, the prevalence of HTLV-1 among adults is more than 40 percent, with indigenous communities, especially in the Alice Springs region, the worst affected.
25 years ago, in 1993, the rate of HTLV-1 infection in the, Alice Springs region was only 13.9%. That means the virus's infection rate has nearly tripled over the past 25 years.
Dr Robert Gallo, co-founder and director of the Institute for Human viruses at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said: it is still not known how high the rate of HTLV-1 infection will be in the region, and it suspects that HTLV-1 in local indigenous communities is a variant of the virus. To make it easier to spread.
The areas more heavily affected by HLTV are mostly remote, poor areas that are often ignored by medical institutions and do not have adequate health care resources, the professor said.
Even more frightening, few people are working on the vaccine outside Japan. There are also no countries to screen for the virus, and only a few countries for prenatal screening. This means that a baby is likely to be born with the virus. It also means that if the donor is a carrier of HTLV-1, there is a risk of contracting the virus once an organ transplant or blood transfusion is performed. This has also caused considerable public health problems.
Shortly after the discovery of the HTLV-1 virus in 1993, HIV was discovered. Because of the higher transmission efficiency of HIV, HIV has been paid more and more attention. In contrast, HTLV-1 is ignored, and there is still a lack of understanding of HTLV-1.
"We have to remedy what we've never done before," Dr. Gallo said. "We have to take the HTLV-1 seriously." The discovery of high prevalence in central Australia is also a wake-up call for the world.
At present, only supportive therapy or chemotherapy can be taken once the onset of the disease, but the effect of treatment is generally not good. Therefore, we can only proceed from oneself, to carry on the prevention to it.
Tip: this virus can only be transmitted by blood transfusions, needles, sexual behavior, mother-child transmission. As long as they treat a disease in a formal medical institution, stay away from drug, avoid reusing needles, and take protective measures when they get laid, they will not be infected with the virus. Mothers don't have to worry about doing antenatal tests to help you have a healthy baby.
Similarly, I also hope that everyone will not discriminate against carriers of the virus, in daily life, he is the same as all of us. Normal life contact does not lead to infection!