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| Content Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention |
© 2007 Abesha Care Inc. All Right Reserved. office@abeshacare.org
Where did HIV come from?
The earliest known case of HIV-1 in a human was from a blood sample collected in 1959
from a man in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. (How he became infected is not
known.) Genetic analysis of this blood sample suggested that HIV-1 may have stemmed
from a single virus in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
We know that the virus has existed in the United States since at least the mid- to late
1970s. From 1979-1981 rare types of pneumonia, cancer, and other illnesses were being
reported by doctors in Los Angeles and New York among a number of male patients who
had sex with other men. These were conditions not usually found in people with healthy
immune systems.
In 1982 public health officials began to use the term "acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome," or AIDS, to describe the occurrences of opportunistic infections, Kaposi's
sarcoma (a kind of cancer), and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in previously healthy
people. Formal tracking (surveillance) of AIDS cases began that year in the United States.
In 1983, scientists discovered the virus that causes AIDS. The virus was at first named
HTLV-III/LAV (human T-cell lymphotropic virus-type III/lymphadenopathy- associated virus)
by an international scientific committee. This name was later changed to HIV (human
immunodeficiency virus).
For many years scientists theorized as to the origins of HIV and how it appeared in the
human population, most believing that HIV originated in other primates. Then in 1999, an
international team of researchers reported that they had discovered the origins of HIV-1,
the predominant strain of HIV in the developed world. A subspecies of chimpanzees native
to west equatorial Africa had been identified as the original source of the virus. The
researchers believe that HIV-1 was introduced into the human population when hunters
became exposed to infected blood.
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