"More than 80 percent of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections are transmitted via sexual intercourse. And researchers may have discovered at least one reason why. According to a new study published in Cell, a component of human semen may facilitate the spread of the virus by targeting immune system cells, in some cases making the pathogen up to 100,000 times more virulent. The team of German scientists had initially set out to determine if semen contained factors that inhibit the HIV infection. "We were not expecting to find an enhancer, and we were even more surprised about the strength," says report co-author Frank Kirchhoff, a virologist at the University of Ulm Clinic in Germany. "Most enhancers have maybe a two- or three-fold effect, but here the effect was amazing—more than 50-fold and, under certain conditions, more than 100,000-fold.""
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Frank Kirchhoff as quoted in ”Male Semen Makes HIV More Potent”, by Nikhil Swaminathan, Scientific American, (December 14, 2007)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/HIV%2FAIDS
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HIV/AIDS
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