IMMUNE ACTIVATION IS A DOMINANT FACTOR IN THE PATHOGENESIS OF AFRICANAIDS

The AIDS epidemic in Africa is very different from the epidemic in the West. As suggested here by Zvi Bentwich, Alexander Kalinkovich and Zi va Weisman, this appears to be primarily a consequence of the overacti vation of the immune system in the African population owing to the ext remely high prevalence of infections, particularly helminthic, in Afri ca. Such activation shifts the cytokine balance towards a T helper 0/2 (Th0/2)-type response, which makes the host more susceptible to infec tion with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and less able to cope wit h it.