Does anyone have any information on HTLV 3, in language a normal person can understand?

Question

Everything I have found on the internet explains it without explaining what to expect with this virus.

Answer 1

Possibly some of the confusion comes because "HTLV3" (sometimes written "HTLV-III") has at different times been the name for two completely different viruses.

There are two genera of retroviruses that are known to cause human disease. One is the lentivirus genus, which includes HIV1 and HIV2, and the other is the gammaretrovirus group which includes the HTLV viruses.

Lentiviruses cause immune suppression (for example AIDS), while HTLV viruses MAY cause particluar types of lymphocyte tumours.

The first thing to recognise is that "HTLV3" used to be the name assigned to the virus we now know as HIV. This causes a lot of confusion. When HIV was first discovered it was believed to be in the same group as the two previously discovered retroviruses, HTLV1 and HTLV2. We now know it is a different kind of retrovirus. It was renamed "HIV" in the mid 1980s. If you are looking for reliable information about this virus, look under "HIV" not "HTLV3".

If you read anything about "HTLV 3" from the early 1980s it is actually referring to HIV.

However, to make things even more confusing, there is a newly discovered gammaretrovirus (a real HTLV) called HTLV3. It was discovered in 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTLV#HTLV-III_and_HTLV-IV

No one knows yet if it actually causes disease in humans.

Answer 2

probably because each individual responds differently to infection by HTLV 3.