Where Did AIDS Come From: The Facts

During the last twenty years, about 24 million individuals around the world died due to AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. This syndrome is on the rise, making new victims each day.

The virus, called HIV, is believed to have come from Africa. As people died there because of the virus, blood samples were taken to establish the death factor, and the HIV virus was identified; all this happened in 1959.

The most interesting fact about how the HIV virus came into being and infected humans is very much related to another virus, called SIV, or Simian Immunodeficiency Virus. This only appears in monkeys, but the structure is very similar to HIV. Also, SIV and HIV produce the same effects in monkeys, and humans, but they are not interchangeable, so HIV does not cause any disease in monkeys, and vice versa. What caused the mix up? A few theories were born.

The disease knew its big break, in 1980, in America. A group of gay men among which there were drug users began to fell ill, but no exact causes for why that happened were established. Their illnesses happened very often, and they were related to a failure of their immune system. Studies have shown that the ailments appeared in those that had intercourse with another ill member of the group, or used the same syringe for the drugs. At a certain point, members of the group began dying, and that was the moment when serious questions began to rise, as well. The first conclusion was that people could die, if their immune system faced total failure. In the people that died back then, the T cells, which are the cells in the human body specialized in fighting disease were severely damaged. The mysterious disease was named AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), in 1981, but it was not yet known what caused it. Later on, Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo discovered the virus and called it HIV.

Four years passed until a blood test was designed to establish whether a person has HIV or not. The same test is used even today, but others were made for testing the saliva or the urine.

After AIDS was identified, the causes still remained unknown, so it spread from one person to another. But how did the disease get from Africa into America? The answer is related to the possibility of movement for people to one country to another. It is believed that those working as flight attendants used to have many different sexual partners during their travels, which may be what caused the disease to spread from one continent to another.

Studies were carried on, and it was established that AIDS can be transmitted through blood transfusion, sexual intercourse and the use of the same syringe. It is believed that 50 million people all over the world are infected, and half of them already died from the terrible disease. Searches for a cure are still underway.

Freeda is a writer and publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit - www.articleclick.com

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