Stone age diseases and modern AIDS.

Biology Department, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-6801, USA. koch@indiana.edu

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.

PMID: 18687115 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

PMCID: PMC2531097