Biologists at the University of Liverpool in the UK have published new research suggesting that the reason why ten per cent of Europeans are immune to HIV infection is because of the plagues that swept the continent in ancient times.

Scientists have known for some time that these individuals carry a genetic mutation (of the gene known as CCR5) that prevents the HIV virus from entering their immune system. What has puzzled them is the fact that HIV has emerged only recently, and thus cannot have played a role in raising the frequency of the mutation to the high levels found in some parts of Europe today.

New research by Christopher Duncan and Susan Scott, however, attributes the high prevalence of the mutation to the fact that it also offers protection from another deadly viral disease that ravaged Europe in historic times.

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