Roman Empire 'helped spread Aids'
Thursday, 04 Sep 2008 12:07
Did Roman soldiers inadvertently make Europe more susceptible to Aids?
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The expanding borders of the Roman Empire may have lowered Europe's resistance to HIV and Aids, a study has speculated.
French researchers claim modern-day south Europeans are less likely to have a gene variant that makes them less susceptible to HIV and Aids.
Scientists had previously been unable to explain why a gene that confers resistance to HIV, found exclusively in Europe and western Asia, varies across the continent.
Fifteen per cent of people in northern Europe are said to have the gene, compared to just one in 20 Greeks, a report in the New Scientist said.
According to Eric Faure at the University of Provence in Marseille, the gene is much more prevalent beyond the boundaries of the Roman Empire from 500BC to 500AD.
Dr Faure took 19,000 DNA samples from across Europe and discovered the gene variant dwindled in regions conquered by the Romans.
He says an alternative theory that the gene was spread by the Vikings does not hold because their invasion routes do not match the current distribution.
The scientist also discounted the hypothesis that the Romans increased the prevalence of the regular, non-HIV resistant gene into their colonies.
Instead he suggests that as the Romans moved in all directions from the Italian peninsula they inadvertently spread a disease that killed people with the gene variant.