The discovery of the origins of the HIV

By Joo Marinho

"In honor of the

World AIDS Day,
December 1st"

Kinshasa, Belgian Congo, 1908. As a tradition in that country, a man goes to a local
market and buys a nice food for his lunch, which is very appreciated in that region:
monkey meat.

After the feast, the man sends his children to play in the neighborhood and has a hot
afternoon of sex with his wife. At night, with an excuse that hes going to hang out with
his friends, he meets his male lover in the next village.

The man doesnt know but the habit of eating monkey meat has installed a new virus in
his body which will be unknown by the science in the next 70 years and which would
kill him, his wife and his lover: the HIV.

The previous scene is fictional but it might be true. The HIV, were supposed to know.
He became known in 1981, when the United States faced an outbreak of a rare type of
cancer the Kaposi sarcoma and of a mysterious health condition, characterized by
the progressive destruction of the white cells in the blood. A short time after, it became
clear that drug addicts and gay men were the most affected people by the new disease.
They had been so affected that the new disease received the name of GRID (gay-related
immune deficiency).

Between 1983 and 1984, two group of scientists, one headed by Dr. Luc Montagnier in
France and the other headed by Dr. Robert Gallo in the United States, isolated and
identified the viral agent which caused the disease.

For a time, Dr. Gallo was claimed to be the only or first discoverer of HIV. The polemic
started in the 80s, when after he had isolated the virus and developed a test to detect it
in patients, the government of the United States invited him to announce the discovery
without the French group, which had already written an article about the agent.
Today, were able to know that Dr. Montagniers group was the first team to publish an
article about the isolation of the virus, and that Dr. Gallo had received some
contaminated samples with the French virus, which was being studied. Nowadays, its
recognized that both Luc Montaigner and Robert Gallo are the discoverers, and also Dr.
Jay Levy, who concomitantly had isolated the virus in the University of California but
remained out of this controversy.

Nevertheless, the previous HTLV-III, as it had been named by Dr. Gallo, became HIV
(human immunodeficiency virus). The disease, by its turn, was renamed as AIDS
(acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) and it has shown that it isnt gay-related
after all: it spreads itself through sexual fluids, blood, and breast milk.

If you have been reading this article until now, the history from 4th to 8th paragraphs
is certainly well-known by you but what about Kinshasa, 1908, monkey meat and
HIV? Why did we start from them? Actually, theres a big gap in the HIVs history for
the most people which has led them to believe that AIDS is a very new disease which
was born in the 80s, and it is caused by libertarian sexual behaviors and, because of
that, a type of punishment by God, according to some religious views.

Actually, between 2007 and 2008, a group of scientists headed by Dr. Michael
Worobey, from the University of Arizona in Tucson, published two articles which
reported the discovery of the previous history of HIV and AIDS.

Nowadays, the most accepted thesis about the origin of HIV is a similar virus which
attacks more than 30 species of African primates: the SIV (simian immunodeficiency
virus). The two main strains of HIV HIV-1, which causes the pandemic disease all
over the world; and HIV-2, which survives mainly in Africa have risen from a
mutation of SIV which existed in two groups of chimpanzees. This has been proved by
genetic analysis of the both viruses, HIV and SIV. Its believed that the migration of SIV
to the humans and the mutation which originated HIV have come from the millennial
habit of eating monkey meat in Central Africa.

The first article from the group of researchers in University of Arizona was published in
2007 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using genetic analysis
from people infected in the early years, they traced the HIVs route through the world.

After it rose in Central Africa, HIV spread itself in the continent and was transmitted to
Haitians who were in Africa invited by governments to work due to the urban
development of the African cities. Its believed that the virus traveled to the Haiti in
1966, and entered the United States in 1969 due to Haitian immigration. From the
United States, the expansion continued through the globe.
The second article was published in 2008 in Nature. In this research, Dr. Worobey
and his colleagues analyzed the two oldest known samples of blood containing HIV:
one is from 1959, and belongs to a man who died in Kinshasa, former Belgian Congo
and currently Democratic Republic of the Congo; the other belongs to a woman from
the same city. The date of the sample: 1960.

Dr. Worobey and his researchers discovered that both viruses had originated from a
same human host, who is believed to have lived between 1884 and 1924. They risked a
date for the birth of HIV: 1908. It's when our history begins.

Bibliographical reference to this text:

MARINHO, J. The discovery of the origins of the HIV. Sex Boys Magazine/Clipping LGBT, Sao
Paulo (Brazil), 20 Nov. 2013. < http://www.clippinglgbt.com.br/a-descoberta-das-origens-do-
hiv/>. Originally published in Portuguese.