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DONATE
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Any Donations to help us in our fight against HIV/Aids will be most welcome
Our Banking Details
Bank: First National Bank
Branch: Bela-Bela
Branch Code: 260347
Account Name: HIV/Aids Prevention Group
Account Number: 54201158308
Our NPO Registration Number 033 - 419
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FLASH NEWS
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General Meeting: monthly meeting with all staff and community stakeholders, conducted by Management Committee
Annual General Meeting conducted by Board of Directors
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HIV Origin and History
AIDS is thought to have originated in Sub - Saharan Africa during the twentieth century and is now a global epidemic. The World Health Organization estimated that, worldwide, between 2.8 and 3.5 million people with AIDS died in 2004.
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AIDS is thought to have originated in sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century
Two species of HIV infect humans: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is more virulent and more easily transmitted. HIV-1 is the source of the majority of HIV infections throughout the world, while HIV-2 is less easily transmitted and is largely confined to West Africa.
Both species of the virus (HIV-1 and HIV-2) are believed to have originated in West-Central Africa and jumped species (zoonosis) from primates to humans. HIV-1 evolved from a Simian Immunodeficiency Virus found in the chimpanzee subspecies Pan troglodytes . DNA sequencing indicates that HIV-1 (group M) entered the human population in the early 20th century, probably sometime between 1915 and 1941. HIV-2 crossed species from a different strain of SIV, this one found in sooty mangabeys (an old world monkey) from Guinea-Bissau.
The earliest documented HIV-1 infection dates from 1959, and was discovered in the preserved blood sample of a man from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 1969, a 15-year-old African-American male died at the St Louis City Hospital from aggressive Kaposi's sarcoma. AIDS was suspected as early as 1988, and in 1999, researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine confirmed this, finding HIV-1 in his preserved blood and tissues.
In 1976, a Norwegian sailor, his wife, and his nine-year-old daughter died of AIDS. The sailor had first presented symptoms in 1966, four years after he had spent time in ports along the West African coastline. Tissue samples from the sailor and his wife were tested in 1988 and found to contain the HIV-1 virus (Group O). The next documented western death from AIDS was that of Dr. Grethe Rask 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 June 18, 1981, when the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported in its Morbidity and Mortality weekly report newsletter that unusual clusters of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia had been discovered in gay men in Los Angeles in the early 1980'2. Over the next eighteen months, more Pneumocystis carinii clusters were discovered among otherwise healthy men in cities throughout the country, along with other opportunistic diseases (such as Kaposi's Sarcoma and lymphadenopathy), common in immunosuppressed 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 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 . By August 1982, the disease was being referred to by it's new name of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). An anagram of AIDS, SIDA, was then created for use in French (Syndrome d'Immuno-Déficience Acquise) and Spanish (Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida)
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 . 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 . 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) . 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 . 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 .
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