French virologists on Sunday said they had found a new subtype of the AIDS virus that appears to have jumped the species barrier to humans from gorillas.
The new strain, found in a woman from Cameroon, West Africa, is part of the HIV-1 family of microbes that account for the vast majority of cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), they said.
Until now, all have been linked to the chimpanzee.
The new subtype has been called P, adding to three established HIV-1 subtypes — M, by far the most prevalent, and O and N, which are rare.
There is also an HIV-2 which is a minority viral family and is also suspected to have origins in non-human primates.
