Hypothesis

Stone age diseases and modern AIDS

Arthur L Koch

Biology Department, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 47405-6801, USA

author email corresponding author email

Virology Journal 2008, 5:93doi:10.1186/1743-422X-5-93

Published:	7 August 2008

Abstract

The great advantage of being a sexually transmitted disease is the ability to survive and specialize solely on a host species that is present in low numbers and widely distributed so that contact between infected and uninfected organisms by chance is rare.

Pathogens of a sparse, but widely distributed host species, must either: i) have an alternative host; ii) be able to survive in a dormant state; or iii) be non-destructive to their host. For the pathogens of a diploid there is a particularly effective strategy, that of being sexually transmitted. Then the hosts' themselves transfer the pathogen.