Who was the first person infected with HIV and how were they infected?
Chris Williams, Birmingham UK
- We will surely never know who or how, but we can speculate. There was a great deal of conjecture in the late 1980's about Patient Zero, identified as Gaetan Dugas - a Canadian flight attendant who purportedly knowingly infected as many as 250 men a year on both sides of the Atlantic - said to have singlehandedly started the epidemic, but most of this is now largely discredited. Anyhow, no one ever believed he was the first to be infected. Computer models have estimated that the first human infection occurred about 1930, give or take 20 years. The earliest known infection of an identified human being dates back to 1959, found in a plasma sample taken from an adult male living in the Belgian Congo (later Zaire and now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). As to how, most of the loose talk on the street seems to assume sex between a human and a chimp, as the HIV-1 virus is almost identical to a simian virus found in chimpanzees. A human eating a chimp seems just as likely, and some evidence suggests that it may have occurred iatrogenically when chimps were used in developing a polio vaccine for humans. For more, see Annabel Kanabus and Sarah Allen's study at www.avert.org/origins.htm.
Professor William Dunlap, Quinnipiac Univ., Hamden, Connecticut USA
- This is total urban myth answer with no scientific back-up, but I heard that HIV was a virus that passed from the animal kingdom to humans through somebody having sex with . . .either a pig or a monkey, I forget which.
Mary, Glasgow Scotland
- HIV is believed to have been passed into humans sometime in the 50s or 60s in Africa. Research into Hepatitis was being conducted on liver tissue from primates which was contaminated with the then unknown Simian Immunodeficiency Virus and transplanted into a human patient.
CA , by the sea
- Patient zero was an Air Canada flight attendent. he contracted hiv while in Africa in the late 70's. According to sources he was the first person to transmit the virus intercontentally.
Daniel, Toronto Canada
- The sailor who died in Manchester in 1959 is not now thought to have had HIV: the first recorded case is believed to be that of a Norwegian sailor who contracted the disease in the early 1960s, passed it on to his wife and daughter (the latter was born with it in 1967), and died in 1976. There is an article by E Hooper, in the BMJ (315) 1997, which has information on both cases.
Jude, Aberdeen UK
- "The River", by Edward Hooper, speculates that HIV was transmitted to humans from polio vaccinations carried out in Zaire. If I rember correctly, the vaccins were grown in dishes of chimp or monkey livers; these could have been infected.
I think the evidence for this thesis was inconclusive.Steve, Nyon, Switzerland
- Sir, thank you. Sir, I think, first aids is discover in south africa. It comes man_chimpanzee. Who is this man? Please give the name for this man. Please give the answer sir .
mathu, coimbatore INDIA
- AIDS is a man made disease that was developed in the bio-chemical lab on Plum Island near New York. It was first developed in 1965 by German Nazi scientists that were brought across after WW II. The Candida Maltosa bacteria was infected into a cell and this first version of AIDS was consciously injected into a human being. The 'final' version of AIDS was developed on Plum Island in 1979 based upon the Candida Dubliniensis fungal bacteria and once again consciously injected into a unknowing human being from Canada over 1979 and 1980. This is where the real AIDS epidemic started.
Syl, Spain
- AIDS is a man made disease that was developed in the bio-chemical lab on Plum Island near New York. It was first developed in 1965 by German Nazi scientists that were brought across after WW II. The Candida Maltosa bacteria was infected into a cell and this first version of AIDS was consciously injected into a human being. The 'final' version of AIDS was developed on Plum Island in 1979 based upon the Candida Dubliniensis fungal bacteria and once again consciously injected into a unknowing human being from Canada over 1979 and 1980. This is where the real AIDS epidemic started.
Adino, Benue Makurdi
- HIV is believed to have been passed into humans sometime in the 50s or 60s in Africa. Research into Hepatitis was being conducted on liver tissue from primates which was contaminated with unknown Simian Immunodeficiency Virus and transplanted into a human patient
tMAN, Lagos Nigeria
- The first known case in North American was a 16 year old named Robert Rayford. He presented with fever, all manner of warts and sores, swollen testicles, and a depleted immune system. The year was 1968, and doctors were baffled. Rayford died only a year after presenting to doctors. Tests were performed on a stored tissue sample in 1987, and showed antibodies for all 9 strains of HIV known at that time. It was suspected that he was a male prostitute.
Sheldon, San Ramon USA
- According to the CDC the highest risk sexual activity (receptive anal) poses a 50 in every 10,000 risk of transmission. That's 0.5 %. I'm sorry but i don't get the bushmeat theory. I thought HIV died within seconds of it being exposed to air. Did some hunter kill a chimpanzee and within seconds bite into it for a quick raw lunch and somehow he had a cut in his mouth and got orally infected with SIV? What a load of b****ks. Furthermore (and bearing in mind how difficult it is to transmit) it had to evolve from SIV to HIV in one or two generations into other towns and then across borders. Plus why was the first outbreak only in 3 american cities roughly at the same time and not all over the world? HIV or whatever it is is a man made product of monkey kidney smoothies that idiot virus hunters played around with in their labs and injected into the gay population in 1979 under the label of a hepatitis b vaccine who unsurprisingly all started dropping like flies within 12 months.
Ben, Liverpool, UK
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