An increasingly endangered West African chimpanzee subspecies, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, was recently revealed to harmlessly harbor an AIDS-like virus that could solve the mystery of the disease's origins in humans--and lead to a cure.
The Bantu woman had been infected by a chimpanzee belonging to Pan troglodytes troglodytes, 1 of 2 chimpanzee subspecies endemic to Cameroon (online Appendix Figure, available from www.cdc.gov/EID/ content/13/9/1314-appG.htm).
Now, a newly discovered simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) strain shows strong similarities to two of the previously analyzed simian viruses, which appear in the same chimpanzee subspecies, Pan troglodytes troglodytes. HIV-1 is also closely related to this cluster of simian viruses, they report.