How AIDs Started

Most people have heard of HIV or AIDs. But does everyone know where it came from? How it spread across the world? How did it became a major assail on the human race? Well this this blog all the questions will be covered and more.

AIDs was first discovered in the early 1980s. Although many believe HIV sprung up in the 1940s or 1950s. AIDs is an extreme case of HIV. So to find out where AIDs comes from we have to look more closely at HIV and its origins.

"Four of the earliest known instances of HIV infection are as follows:

1. A plasma sample taken in 1959 from an adult male living in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
2. A lymph node sample taken in 1960 from an adult female, also from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
3. HIV found in tissue samples from an American teenager who died in St. Louis in 1969.
4. HIV found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor who died around 1976.

A 1998 analysis of the plasma sample from 1959 suggested that HIV-1 was introduced into humans around the 1940s or the early 1950s.^"

^(Avert.org)

^{The origin of HIV and how it started is a very debated and controversial subject. One of the most believed theories is that humans contracted HIV from a Chimpanzees and white collared monkeys. It is believed that humans contracted HIV from these monkeys. Which is the "hunter" theory. In many areas of Africa people may kill, butcher and eat these monkeys. So then through a cut on the hunter the hunter could contract HIV from the monkey if the monkeys blood reached their own. This HIV strand would then adapt its self to the human host as it had the monkey.} 

^{Many believe that HIV first developed in Africa, which in fact is true. This is because the strain of HIV in the monkeys listed above is only found in African monkeys. It has not been found in Asian or South American monkeys. It is not clear how the HIV strand jumped from Africa across the world, but it is assumed through people traveling to different places and being in contact sexually or blood transfers. They believe that the blood transfers between primates and humans are still happening today. Therefore, hunting certain monkeys has been made illegal, yet it still happens.} 

 ^{HIV became adjacent to America in the early 1980s. When according to Avert.org "}A number of gay men in New York and California suddenly began to develop rare opportunistic infections and cancers that seemed stubbornly resistant to any treatment. At this time, AIDS did not yet have a name, but it quickly became obvious that all the men were suffering from a common syndrome." Which then escalated the debate of homosexuality and AIDs.

It can not be be determined exactly how HIV was started which the became AIDs. But what is known is that it is spreading across the world more and more every day and without awareness it will never be controlled. So remember everyone! Have safe sex, and don't hunt and butcher rare monkeys in the jungles of Africa with rare virus diseases!

Source:

"The Origin of HIV and the First Cases of AIDS." AIDS & HIV Information from the AIDS Charity AVERT. Web. 15 Dec. 2010. <http://www.avert.org/origin-aids-hiv.htm>.