Kathy,
Yes, they can contract AIDS, but this happens only with consierable
effort in the laboratory.
HIV-1, the virus that causes most human AIDS cases, is not found
naturally in the chimpanzee population.
Chimpanzees can be deliberately infected with HIV-1 in the lab, but
they rarely progress to AIDS. In spite of this, or perhaps because of
it, chimpanzees are used in research on HIV-1. Much of what you find
on the Web is material from groups either for or against this
research.
Chimpanzees are susceptible to a related virus, simian
immunodeficiency virus (SIV) They do not show symptoms, nor do they
die from an SIV-caused version of AIDS.
Some scientists believe that SIV jumped the species barrier at some
past time, becoming HIV in humans.
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/NATURE/9908/19/siv.hiv/
ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/aids990131.html
University of Pennsylvania Health System
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/apr97/hivvaccine.html
Medical Research Modernization Committee
http://www.mrmcmed.org/aids.html
Newswise story from Yerkes Laboratory
http://www.newswise.com/articles/2000/9/CHIMPS.YPC.html
Relevant searches:
Chimpanzees AIDS
://www.google.com/search?q=chimpanzees+AIDS&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N
Chimpanzees HIV
://www.google.com/search?q=chimpanzees+HIV&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=40&sa=N
Thank you for your question. |
