Une variation génétique rend les africains plus vulnérables au VIH :

Common gene makes African more vulnerable to HIV :

Around 11% of HIV infections in Africa may be due to a genetic variant common in people of African descent that makes them more vulnerable to the virus. The genetic change, which is less prevalent in other ethnic groups, increases the likelihood of infection with the most common strain of the virus (HIV-1) by 40%.

Once infection has occurred, though, the genetic variant slows the progression of the disease, prolonging the patient's life by around two years.

The newly discovered genetic factor may go some way to explaining why AIDS is so prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the World Health Organisation, there were 4.3m people newly infected with HIV worldwide in 2006 and 2.9m deaths from AIDS-related illnesses. Around a third of all new infections and AIDS-related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where there are eight countries in which adult HIV prevalence exceeds 15% of the population...(Suite)