The HTLV-3 virus is a variant of a known human cancer virus

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The discovery of a virus which may cause Aids, the fatal disease sweeping through America, has been hailed as a "monumental breakthrough" in medical research.

The development was announced in Washington by US Health Secretary Margaret Heckler.

She said the virus was a variant of a known human cancer virus called HTLV-3. A blood test has also been developed, which, she said, would be available within six months, preventing the tragedy oftransfusionpatients contracting the disease through tainted blood products.

To hear that there is a possible vaccine that could come out in two or three years is no good news for these people.

Aids sufferer Bob Scheckey

She also suggested that a vaccine to prevent Aids might be ready for testing in two years' time.

"Today's discovery represents the triumph of science over a dreaded disease," she said.

Aids, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, weakens the immune system, leaving its victims open to a series of wasting diseases. Those people who appear to be more at risk of contracting Aids include homosexuals,haemophiliacs, drug users and those who have received blood transfusions.

It has been causing widespread panic in the United States, where 4,000 people have been infected since the discovery of the disease in 1981. Almost half have died.

The findings in the United States are similar to the discovery in France last week of a virus called LAV, although French researchers stopped short of saying it was definitely the one which causes Aids.

Reaction to the news among victims was philosophical. Bob Scheckey has lived with the disease for two years - far longer than his doctors predicted. He welcomed the news from Washington, but said a possible vaccine was too far off to offer comfort.

"I am working with people with Aids on a daily basis," he said. "To hear that there is a possible vaccine that could come out in two or three years is no good news for these people. Most of the people we're working with now will be dead by that time."

James Earl Ray was sentenced to 99 years for Martin Luther King's murder

Officials in the Tennessee prison department said he died in hospital where he was being treated for terminal liver disease. He had been treated in hospital several times in the last 15 months.

Dr King died from a single rifle shot as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, on 4 April 1968.

The assassination sparked race riots in more than 100 cities and set off one of the biggestmanhuntsin US history.

Ray, an escaped convict, was captured in London more than a year later.

He pleaded guilty to the killing and was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the murder to escape the electric chair, but three days after his jail sentence began he withdrew his confession.

Campaign to clear Ray's name

His case was taken up by the King family, which has campaigned for a new investigation into the assassination in the belief that it may have been plotted by senior officials in the US Government.

The King family issued a statement expressing grief over the death of Ray and renewed its call for a fresh inquiry.

Events marking the anniversary of Dr King's assassination in Memphis last month were dominated by a debate over the viability of claims that new evidence points to a vast government conspiracy to kill him.

Some black leaders regard the campaign for a new inquiry as a distraction from the search to put Martin Luther King's vision into action.

Ray was known to have a fanatical hatred of black people. Even while serving his sentence in Missouri, he rejected a move to an open farm prison where conditions were better on the grounds he could not live with black inmates.

transfusion:the transfer of whole blood or blood products from one individual to another(输血，输液)

haemophiliac:血友病患者

manhunt:an organized,extensive search for a person,usually a fugitive criminal（对逃犯等的搜捕，追捕等）