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^{Professor Vittorio Colizzi is an Italian virologist and one of the most eminent HIV/AIDS researchers in Europe. He directs the Immunochemical and Molecular Pathology laboratory in the biology department of Tor Vergata University in Rome. Three years ago he witnessed in Benghazi court in defense of the Bulgarian nurses, accused of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with AIDS. Prof Colizzi was recently in Bulgaria on a science forum and said he had new scientific data proving the innocence of the Bulgarian nurses. The information was published in the prestigious Nature magazine .}


- Prof Colizzi, how would comment on the latest results of the blood tests taken from the HIV infected Libyan children, made in Oxford?
- The analyses trace the genetic mutation of the C type hepatitis and HIV viruses that we have found in the sick children. Ever virus mutates and if we know the speed of the mutation we can easily calculate when the infection occurred. The genetic cycle of the virus is traced and is input in a computer. Special software makes the necessary calculations.
- When exactly did the infection take place, according to your data?
- 70% of the C type hepatitis infected children from Benghazi have lived with the virus since before 1998 that is to say before the Bulgarian nurses arrived in Libya. 40% of the HIV cases have also been infected before 1998. The conclusion is clear that the two viruses were in the children's organisms before 1998 that is to say, before the Bulgarians were in Benghazi.
- How many children did you take blood from?
- About a hundred.
- Is there even a small possibility that the calculation method makes mistakes?
- So far such a thing has not been proved.
- Will you present the results of your research to the Libyan court?
- If the defence asks us to, of course I can. I cannot, though, go to the court on my own initiative.
- Has a Bulgarian authority contacted you on the matter?
- No, not this time. When I made the previous research, the Bulgarian nurses' lawyer contacted me and I went to Benghazi as a witness. Nobody has asked me to provide information this time. This was the reason we published the results. From a scientific point of view, additional information can be extracted and we for sure will. What matters is that now we have official proof for the fact that the two viruses, C type hepatitis and HIV were present in the hospital and the bodies of the hospital patients before 1998. This fact nullifies the main accusation towards the Bulgarians and namely that they deliberately brought the AIDS virus, that it did not exist before that in the hospital and it was imported. All this, simply, is not true.
- Whose was the initiative for this particular analysis of HIV virus?
- Mine. We did not have the opportunity to make it earlier. This type of analysis needs new type of technology and software. Such computers have been available in Oxford for a couple of months only. So, we started the analysis in August. Such analyses were impossible to make earlier.

Pavleta Kirova
Martin Karbovski
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