Plague CCR5 Mutation Blocked HIV

In 2005, University of Liverpool researchers proposed that medieval plagues helped make around 10 percent of Europeans resistant to HIV. These individuals carry the CCR5-delta32 mutation, which prevents HIV from entering cells in the immune system. A lethal viral hemorrhagic fever repeatedly struck Europe from 1347 to 1660; it increased the mutation's frequency from 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 10.

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