RESEARCHERS at the conference were divided over the dramatic disclosure of a disease similar to AIDS, which does not arise from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This raised a debate on whether this was a new disease or had resulted from an HIV mutant.

The virus responsible for this disease was discovered by scientists at the University of California, who named it the "human intracisternal retrovirus". Sudhir Gupta, who headed the team, admitted, "We can't say if this is a new virus.... all we can say is that its different" from the HIV and the three other known retroviruses. Retroviruses are viruses that can invade the chromosomes of a cell. The U-C team has identified this condition in eight patients so far. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which the case reports of two of these patients will soon be published, released the U-C team's report at the conference in the interests of public health.

However, Luc Montagnier of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, who discovered the HIV, said he was studying two patients with the new virus and believed it to be a distant strain of HIV-1. But even as Montagnier said this, another 22 cases of the new virus were discovered in the USA. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond Foundation in New York reported 11 cases, Jeffrey Laurence of Cornell University, USA, five and James Curran of the US Centre for Disease Control another six.

Graham Bird, an immunologist at the Edinburgh University, said he had a patient with similar symptoms which he attributed to "immune deficiency," and explained "these patients are immune deficient but I don't believe they have AIDS or HIV".

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has announced it will shortly hold an "urgent" meeting to review the cases reported with the new virus. It will also examine whether the retrovirus involved is really a mutant of the HIV as suggested by Montagnier.