Scientists generally agree that simian viruses resembling the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, originally spread from chimpanzees and sooty mangabeys to people in central Africa (SN: 2/6/99, p. 84). Researchers now have hard evidence that other variations of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) occur in wild nonhuman primates and continue to cross into people in Africa.
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