Word: african
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...Weiss of University College London began to study the relevant receptor in 2003, after seeing earlier research that showed how variation in another gene similarly blocked the receptor that allows HIV to enter white blood cells; far fewer people carry that variant. In the lab, Weiss found that the African-specific receptor, called DARC, or duffy antigen receptor for chemokines, also interacted with HIV: the receptor binds to a wide array of proteins that suppress the virus's replication. Intrigued, but unable to explain why the lack of the receptor increased HIV infection, Weiss teamed up with geneticists...
...turned out that among a select cohort of American military personnel who had been followed over decades, the roughly 1,200 carriers of the trait, all of whom were African-American, were 40% more likely after adjustments to be infected with HIV than noncarriers. From that sample, Weiss and his colleagues extrapolated the infection risk attributable to the gene variant in Africa, where a 40% increased susceptibility to infection translates to about 11% of all infections...
...this gene variant, if confirmed, could help explain a huge number of HIV infections, it still cannot come close to explaining the AIDS burden of Africa. Nearly 70% of all HIV-positive people in the world live in sub-Saharan Africa, and prevalence rates in adults in some African countries top 20%. What's more, the gene variant is most common in West Africa, but HIV-infection rates in that region remain very low compared to those in Eastern and Southern Africa, where the disease has festered longest - and where government and medical officials have often turned a blind...
...wish Africa had only one Mugabe. However, when Mugabe attended the recent African Union leaders' meeting - fresh from an "election" marked by murder, torture and intimidation - nobody rebuked him or asked him to step down. That is because all the other leaders are doing similar things. In Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Chad, Djibouti and elsewhere in Africa, leaders have a great deal in common with Mugabe. Some spend millions on themselves while their people remain vulnerable to starvation, then beg for foreign aid. Our forebears set our nations free from the colonial powers. These days Africans need liberating from...
...African union, which espouses democracy and free and fair elections, should have condemned Mugabe and refused to recognize his government. Instead, with the dissent of a few countries, notably Botswana, the Union merely passed a feeble resolution suggesting a government of national unity, which Mugabe in any case would not accept. It is tragic that the A.U. ignored the opportunity to take drastic action. Instead, it has lost whatever credibility it had. Edward R.C. Preston, Auckland...