AIDS Virus Could Remain Latent in Brain, Study Says

LONDON — The AIDS virus may be able to remain latent in the brain as well as in other cells of the body, a finding that emphasizes the difficulty of eliminating the disease from infected people, California researchers reported today.

A “preliminary communication” in the current issue of the medical weekly, the Lancet, said AIDS-associated viruses have been isolated from the cerebrospinal fluid and brains of homosexual men with neurological symptoms.

“Most of these patients also met the clinical criteria for AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome),” said the report from six researchers at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco.

The scientists said their findings “emphasize the potential difficulty in eliminating the virus from the host; it could remain latent in the brain as well as in other cells of the body.”