Food fungus worsens African AIDS epidemic

I keep coming across factors that, while not directly related to the nature of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), are nonetheless driving the African AIDS epidemic.

Take the recent news about a study from the School of Public Health, which found that a type of fungus coating much of the stored corn, rice and nuts in many African and Asian countries may be weakening immune systems and encouraging HIV infection.

Kept in sacks piled in warehouses, food stores in countries near the equator are often contaminated by Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus, fungi that produce a toxic substance called aflatoxin.

About 4.5 billion people worldwide are exposed to aflatoxin at unsafe levels, and chronic exposure has been linked to liver damage and related cancers.

Work by Pauline Jolly, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Epidemiology within the UAB School of Public Health, argues that aflatoxin exposure may be taking an even greater toll in areas where millions are infected with HIV. The research team divided 314 HIV-positive people from Kamasi, Ghana, into four groups based on their level of aflatoxin exposure.  The team found that those in the highest exposure group were 2.6 times more likely to have a high HIV viral load than those in the lowest exposure group. Higher viral load translates into higher rates of HIV transmission. For information, please see our news release and related coverage by the New York Times.

Along the lines of non-viral factors worsening the AIDS epidemic was another study published this past August, also from the School of Public Health. Janet Turan, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Health Care Organization and Policy, and her team found that the fear of being labeled HIV-positive was strong enough to keep mothers from Kenya from having their babies in health-care facilities. Communities there have come to see clinics and skilled care as mostly for HIV-positive women, and HIV often is linked to promiscuity in the eyes of a woman's family.

In Nyanza, Kenya, a region where one in five pregnant women is HIV-positive, skilled care during pregnancy and birth increases the likelihood that those infected will receive antiretroviral drugs that prevent the passing of HIV from mother to child.

It just seems like Africa can’t get a break.

More troubling yet, the search for solutions to the epidemic's many contributors is not accelerating in the age of research budget cuts. The grants that paid for Jolly's research into the aflatoxin and HIV have ended, leaving her unable to pay for a full data analysis of the consequences of combination exposure on sets of immune cells. She does not know where her next round of funding will come from.

“A fungal contribution to HIV transmission will only be proved once and for all by larger randomized studies for which there now is no funding," Jolly said. "The scientific and world-health communities need to decide soon whether or not this question is worth answering.”