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More Clues Come in Possible HIV 'Superbug' Case

It's still not completely clear, however, whether this is the "nightmare virus" that some tabloids have predicted or a phenomenon more closely linked to the genetic idiosyncrasies of the patient.

"The study doesn't quite answer whether it's the virus or the host," said Dr. Bob Shafer, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University, who also maintains the Stanford HIV Drug Resistance Database.

Regardless, state the authors of the report, which appears in the March 19 issue of The Lancet, the case is "of concern." The man is known to have been promiscuous, and what also troubles the scientists is the fact that this mutated strain replicated as quickly in the lab as potent strains that haven't been exposed to the antiretroviral drugs that often prompt the virus to mutate in the first place.