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AIDS is thought to have originated in sub-Saharan Africa during the 20th century. It got into humans by a similar route as some classic Old World infectious diseases. The ancient Old World was the incubator of many diseases like Smallpox because it had large human populations in close association with large animal populations, especially those that lived in Herd s. AIDS followed a similar path. The requirements were: # a large human population, # a large nearby population of a host animal, # a pathogen that eventually mutates to spread from animal to human, # interaction between the species to transmit enough of it to humans to establish a human foothold, which may take millions of individual exposures, # a mutation of same pathogen that can spread from human to human, # some method that allows the pathogen to disperse widely so it does not "burn out" in a local population of humans. Such requirements existed in the remote past with Smallpox , and also with the 20th century Spanish Flu (which actually originated in the New World at Ft. Riley, Kansas). Such conditions MAY eventually be replicated with the Bird Flu . AIDS viruses originated in Primates as far as is known. Possible ways for this virus to have originally infected humans include the hunting and eating of the original primate species; a Bite would be another possible route. The viruses arguably would have remained rare medical curiosities but for 20th century conditions such as widespread use of hypodermic needles in medicine and drug addiction, tourist travel, vast economic growth, and transportation improvements such as railroads, air travel, trucking, and shipping. These social and economic changes allowed the viruses to spread worldwide and infect millions of people. Another currently controversial possibility for the origin of HIV/AIDS was discussed in a 1992 Rolling Stone magazine article by freelance journalist Tom Curtis. He put forward the theory that AIDS was inadvertently caused in the late 1950s in the Belgian Congo by Hilary Koprowski 's research into a Polio Vaccine . Although subsequently retracted due to Libel issues surrounding its claims, the Rolling Stone article motivated another freelance journalist, Edward Hooper , to probe more deeply into this subject. Hooper's research resulted in his publishing a 1999 book, The River , in which he alleged that an experimental oral Polio Vaccine prepared using Chimpanzee kidney tissue was the route through which SIV crossed into humans to become HIV, and thus to start the human AIDS pandemic, some time between 1957 to 1959 . See OPV AIDS Hypothesis . It appears that either HIV existed in very low levels in the United States in periods prior to 1981, or it may have gone Extinct in the United States at times, with the present infection established in the USA about 1976. HIV in Africa likewise was at first at levels too low to be noticed. The spread of the infection in both America and Africa was assisted by changing sexual mores related to rapid Urbanization and economic change in the late 20th century. In the United States and Africa HIV was at first mostly found only in residents of large cities. The new urban lifestyle fostered greater sexual activity as it often included the breaking of old family and tribal bonds, as individuals moved to start new lives far from their points of origin. The infection is now more widespread in rural areas, and has appeared in regions such as China and India, where it was previously not evident. Two species of . {Link without Title} Both species of the virus (HIV-1 and HIV-2) are believed to have originated in West-Central Africa and jumped species (s (an Old World Monkey ) of Guinea-Bissau . {Link without Title} The earliest documented HIV-1 infection dates from City Hospital from aggressive Kaposi's Sarcoma . AIDS was suspected as early as 1984 , and in 1987 , researchers at Tulane University School Of Medicine confirmed this, finding HIV-1 in his preserved blood and tissues. The doctors who worked on his case at the time suspected he was a male prostitute, though the patient did not discuss his sexual history with them in detail. [http://www.tulane.edu/~dmsander/Abstracts/rr99.html [http://ww2.aegis.org/news/ct/1987/CT871003.html In in 1977 . Rask, a Danish surgeon, had worked in the Congo in the early 1970s. The official date for the beginning of the AIDS epidemic is marked as patients. In June 1982, a report of a group of cases amongst gay men in Southern California suggested that a sexually transmitted infectious agent might be the etiological agent ( MMWR Weekly, 1982 ) and was initially termed 'GRID' ( Gay Related Immune Deficiency ). However, the same opportunistic infections also began to be reported among Hemophiliacs heterosexual IV drug users, and Haitian immigrants [http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001123.htm . By August 1982, the disease was being referred to by its new name, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) ( Marx et al., 1982 ). An anagram of AIDS, SIDA, was then created for use in French (Syndrome d'Immuno-Déficience Acquise) and Spanish (Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida) ( Direction Générale De La Santé, 1982 ). In May 1983, doctors at the Institute Pasteur in France reported that they had isolated a new retrovirus from lymphoid ganglions that they believed was the cause of SIDA ( Barre-Sinoussi et al., 1983 ). The virus was later named lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV) and a sample was sent to the CDC, which was later passed to the National Cancer Institute, USA ( Connor and Kingman, 1988 ). In May 1984, Dr Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute also isolated a virus that caused AIDS, and named it Human T-cell Lymphotropic Virus-III (HTLV-III) ( Popovic et al., 1984 ). In January 1985 a number of more detailed reports were published concerning LAV and HTLV-III, and by March it was clear that the viruses were the same, from the same source, and was the etiological agent of AIDS ( Marx, 1985 ; Chang et al., 1993 ). In May 1986, the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses ruled that both names should be dropped and a new name, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), be used ( Coffin et al., 1986 ). SEE ALSO
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