AIDS Origin Traced To 1920s Kinshasa

An anonymous reader writes: A new study published in Science (abstract) has traced the origin of HIV/AIDS back to Kinshasa in the 1920s. The authors say Kinshasa, now in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was then undergoing explosive population growth while supporting an abundant sex trade. These factors, combined with the use of unsterilized needles at health clinics and the railways moving a million people in and out of the city each year, conspired to start the pandemic. "HIV is a mutated version of a chimpanzee virus, known as simian immunodeficiency virus, which probably made the species-jump through contact with infected blood while handling bush meat. The virus made the jump on multiple occasions. One event led to HIV-1 subgroup O which affects tens of thousands in Cameroon. Yet only one cross-species jump, HIV-1 subgroup M, went on to infect millions of people across every country in the world."

Comments

climate change

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad that all the deniers have moved on to climate change, and the aids denial has pretty much died down.

Re:climate change

[markass530]

It's called AIDS denial but it's more technically HIV Denial, they deny that HIV leads to AIDS, and instead say AIDS is caused by Sleeping around / sharing needles etc etc. Foo Fighter front man David Grohl was big on this nonsense for a while back in the early 2000's

So remember:

[cirby]

HIV made a cross-species jump in the 1920s, and went on to kill millions.

But Ebola couldn't possibly mutate enough to survive slightly longer when exposed to air.

I feel much safer now.

Re:So remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

So, one virus did one thing, so why can't another do something completely different?

Seriously, which species are affected and the mode of transmission are wildly different. There's no useful connection between these two issues.

Re:So remember:

[markass530]

The reason AIDS has been so prolific is how long people carry it before showing symptoms , this makes for a long period of time during which they can transmit the disease. Ebola is much more efficient and kills much faster, ==>> much less time to spread the disease

Re:Doctor Mary's Monkey

[BarbaraHudson]

but unless people were having sex with chimps,

... and ...

Truth is nearly always stranger than fiction.

Oh my ...

The "vaccine cultured in simian livers" has been pretty much the accepted story for a couple of decades. No conspiracy theories necessary - just a desire to culture as much vaccine as possible in the shortest time possible without adequate funds to take (in retrospect) every reasonable precaution in an under-developed country.

Re:The story

[AK Marc]

Okay, was there no monkey meat business before 1920s? Why did it make the jump only at that time?

Globalization. The ease that the infected could move around is what spread the disease. The jumps likely happened before as well, but died out in the infected humans.

How exactly does a virus change from a chimp version to a human version?

What change? It's a simian virus. We are simians. You are requiring change when none is necessary. And it changed the same as the pig and bird flus.

Re:Doctor Mary's Monkey

[Columcille]

"...but unless people were having sex with chimps..."

Because the only way to transmit HIV is through sex? As the article itself notes (I know, in our fast-paced age, you cannot be expected to read an entire article), transmission likely happened through blood while eating the meat. Much more plausible.

Re:Doctor Mary's Monkey

[93 Escort Wagon]

If I wanted to hear deluded rantings I'd go to the local nuthouse.

Well, you ARE on Slashdot...

Re:Are we sure it is blood/meat contact?

[bangular]

There's a lot of misinformation that's been passed around regarding HIV. I think the origins of HIV and AIDS as a homosexual disease (remember Gay-related immune deficiency) heightened the "sex with chimps" origin stories. People wanted to believe that some homosexuals also had sex with animals and was just one more reason to hate them.

I remember an elementary school teacher of mine in the 90's telling us that sex with chimps was the most likely reason HIV jumped species. We all giggled, but I'm sure there are many from that classroom that still believe it today.

Re:Are we sure it is blood/meat contact?

[EvilSS]

Consumptions of infected simian meat has been the explanation for a very long time. Why does everyone seem surprised?

Because, at the same time, we've been told HIV can't spread orally.

Well since we don't routinely butcher and eat people, I imagine they felt they could leave that method out of the pamphlet. However blood-blood contact is also a known, disclosed method of transmission. It's just a lot less common in humans than sexual contact.

Re: The story

[markass530]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...

oRLY?

Re:bush meat?

[nitehawk214]

Monkeys for nothing, but the chimps are for free.

Re:Doctor Mary's Monkey

[khallow]

A butcher contaminating himself with animal blood as a means of accepting a viable mutation is a much less likely lottery 'win'.

But people do win the lottery. And it's worth noting here that HIV crossed over numerous times some well before the 60s. It's not like it only happened once.

Re:Are we sure it is blood/meat contact?

[iluvcapra]

Because, at the same time, we've been told HIV can't spread orally.

Whenever someone says something really flat and sorta elliptical like "orally," we gotta get clear about this too -- HIV cannot be spread by kissing. It can be spread by oral sex however, and can be spread by mouth-to-mouth contact when other factors are in play.

HIV exposure from dental work is actually a really common risk factor. In fact, the very first known case of iatrogenic HIV infection was from a dental office.

It's generally accepted you can't get it from kissing, but kissing, eating food, eating raw food, eating bodily fluids, oral contact in the presence of bodily fluids, and oral contact associated with cuts or open sores -- for example, florid herpes -- are all really different vectors.