The Origin of HIV and the Start of AIDS

Today all of us are aware of the terms HIV and AIDS. The disease has killed millions of people worldwide and it is estimated that 40 million people are HIV infected. But we were unaware of the HIV and AIDS till early 1980. Nobody knows from where the virus came. It is all assumptions that scientists and researchers can make. Researchers have their view on the origin of HIV and start of AIDS. But how exactly one can state cannot be said. There are many theories about the origin of the HIV virus but none of them have them proved. No record of HIV virus exists in history and it has been said that it started in central Africa and from there it started spreading slowly and slowly.

HIV was identified in 1983.Earlier the researchers found that chimps acquired the disease from eating one of their favorite preys: monkeys.

"Chimps are 98 percent genetically the same as humans, and they don't get sick from SIV. This is an especially important clue for developing an HIV vaccine, the researchers said. Understanding what prevents chimps from getting sick would help scientists duplicate resistance to AIDS symptoms in humans."

Researchers say, "Chimps likely picked up viruses from both types of monkeys, and eventually a hybrid formed, the researchers said. That probably happened tens of thousands of years ago, which may have given chimps an opportunity to evolve resistance to an AIDS-like disease."

Some researchers say that virus related to HIV is found in monkeys in Africa. Many scientists believe that the first humans got the HIV virus from monkeys by eating them as food or being scratched or bitten by them. It is possible that during preparation of the food or butchering the meat the infected blood could have entered the human body through a cut.

A Canadian flight attendant, nicknamed "patient zero" dies of AIDS he had sexual connection with several of the first victims of AIDS. It is believed that he is responsible for introducing the virus into the general population. By 1984 there are almost 8000 confirmed cases in the US, with 3700 confirmed deaths (CDC surveillance report, Dec. 1984).

It is also said that the AIDS virus was first discovered by Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute in April 1984. Soon after him Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris claimed that he (and not Gallo) was the first to discover the AIDS virus. The two 'co-discoverers' of HIV continue to disagree about the origin of HIV and the birthplace of AIDS till date.

In the middle 1980s the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) was identified by French and American scientists as virus that leads to AIDS.

During Mid - late 1990s there was significant increase in HIV in drug users due to injection of drug, Aboriginal peoples, women, and street-involved youth.

Today, after so much of research and studies about the origin of HIV and start of AIDS the main goal of the scientists is to reduce and eradicate the HIV virus that causes the incurable AIDS.