How did AIDS get started?
480787
A very good movie that explains it quite well is "And the band played on" . Watch it.
992292
Aids is a disease that is spread through intercourse with different partners during sexual acts, or sharing dirty infected needles for drug useage, or even from bodily fluids being exchanged... \n\nSource(s):\nHIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid or breast milk. This transmission can come in the form of: (anal or vaginal) sex; blood transfusion; contaminated needles; exchange between mother and infant during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding; or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/aids...
1121124
Apparently the human version of AIDS came from handling infected animals, though the infection doesn't have the same effect on the animals that it has on humans.
681674
My answer was inacurate, the two answers following however quoted an excellent article. To save others the effort I will put the link in here. This article does an excellent job explaining the origions of HIV and the few places I have checked to verify the information contained in the article have checked out.
423897
Science pretty much backs up the theory that HIV evolved from SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency virus.)  SIV has been present in the ape population for probably thousands or millions of years.  \n\nSomeone may have become infected through a blood transfer - either by a bite, or by preparing a chimp for food.\n\nThe virus probably hung around in the human population for several years to maybe hundreds of years until it mutated into what we now know as HIV.  A virus is a great mutater and evolver.\n\nImmunodefiecency viruses are common in animals - there is FIV (feline), Bovine (cows,) etc.  None of them are transmittable to humans and HIV is not transferrable to them.  Because humans and apes are so similar, it makes sense that a virus that affects them would eventually be able to mutate into something that could infect us.\n\nThe idea that it was transferred by people having sex with chimps is ridiculous.
635614
This is a pet topic of mine...\n\nThe origin of AIDS and HIV has puzzled scientists ever since the illness first came to light in the early 1980s. For over twenty years it has been the subject of fierce debate and the cause of countless arguments, with everything from a promiscuous flight attendant to a suspect vaccine program being blamed. So what it the truth? Just where did AIDS come from?\n\nThe first 'officially recognized' cases of "AIDS" occurred in the USA in the early 1980s (the real origin was later recognized to be Africa and a lot earlier than 1980). A number of gay men in New York and San Francisco suddenly began to develop rare opportunistic infections and cancers that seemed stubbornly resistant to any treatment. At this time, AIDS did not yet have a name, but it quickly became obvious that all the men were suffering from a common syndrome. The discovery of HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that causes AIDS was made soon after. While some were initially resistant to the connection (and indeed remain so today), there is now clear evidence to prove that HIV does cause AIDS. So, in order to find the source of AIDS, it is necessary to look for the origin of HIV, and find out How, When and Where HIV first began to cause disease in humans.\n\nOne theory of the origin of AIDS is that it developed in the Belgian Congo from contaminated vaccines used in the world's first mass immunization for polio. There are a number of reasons why this theory is plausible enough to be worthy of further investigation.\n\n1. The location coincides dramatically. The earliest known cases of AIDS occurred in central Africa, in the same regions where Koprowski's polio vaccine was given to over a million people in 1957-1960.\n\n2. The timing coincides. There is no documented case of HIV infection or AIDS before 1959. Centuries of the slave trade and European exploitation of Africa exposed Africans and others to all other diseases then known; it is implausible that HIV could have been present and spreading in Africa without being recognized.\n\n3. Polio vaccines are grown (cultured) on monkey kidneys which could have been contaminated by SIVs. Polio vaccines could not be screened for SIV contamination before 1985.\n\n4. Another monkey virus, SV-40, is known to have been passed to humans through polio vaccines. A specific pool of Koprowski's vaccine was later shown to have been contaminated by an unknown virus.\n\n5. In order for a virus to infect a different species, it is helpful to reduce the resistance of the new host's immune system. Koprowski's polio vaccine was given to many children less than one month old, before their immune systems were fully developed. Indeed, in one trial, infants were given 15 times the standard dose in order to ensure effective immunization.\n\nIf this theory is correct, it has serious ethical, health and policy implications. In particular, it points to the danger of interspecies transfer of material through vaccinations, organ transplants, etc., which could lead to new variants of AIDS as well as other new diseases. As well, studying the theory may lead to insights about responding to AIDS and preventing new diseases.\n\nHowever, there has been no sustained attempt to test the theory. This could be done, for example, by testing stocks of polio vaccine for the presence of SIV. An offer to undertake tests was made as early as 1991; only in 2000 were some samples tested, and then only US-made vaccine. Another possibility would be to test stored blood samples in Africa from before 1950. If HIV is found, this would undermine the theory.\n\nAlthough the theory has not been properly examined, many people seem to believe it has been refuted. Hilary Koprowski published a letter in Science in 1992 attacking the theory. In 1993, Rolling Stone, which had published a widely publicized article by Tom Curtis about the theory, published an "update", interpreted by Science as a
615781
Wow some of these answers are scaring me.\n\nAIDS is caused by a VIRUS - HIV - not by people.  \n\nWhoever it was that said its been around for a long time had it right - and we won't ever know for sure how and when it started.\n\nYes, it was first identified as a "gay man's disease," but obviously, or I thought obviously, we had moved beyond that.  \n\nAnd if its "punishment," then how do you explain babies becoming infected, and the people that were infected early on from blood transfusions, etc?\n\nCome on people.  Get logical here.\n\nViruses aren't punishments.  Viruses and bacteria don't take personal inventories of those they infect.  They just biologically do their thing, and that is to make people sick.  \n\nHIV isn't a punishment anymore than the common cold or the flu is.
76262
Aids is a type of diasease.  It is not really contageous...  But, if someone gets a cut, and somebody else "touchs" the blood and get into the body, they are now infected...  Now, that person hads HIV from the person who got a cut.  To get HIV, which is a first base of AIDS..  a HIV has to enter a person through blood, or other ways... By blood is mainly...  **sorry but, Also, having sex with someone who has HIV will also transfer the germs..\n\nHIV will soon develope into what you are wonder about, AIDS\n\nAIDS is a farther stage HIV.  AIDS is consider when a person is going to die from HIV.   \n\nTo determine if a person has HIV, you can possible tell by if that person gets sick easily, and also a lot.  But, this is one way to get started in thinking if you do.  The best to determine is to find a specialist.  \n\n\n\nHere's the main answer\n\n\nIf one person hads AIDS or HIV, it can harm others by donating blood to others that they don't even know they have it.  Then, that would be 2 people that has HIV or AIDS.  Soon, if they give birth, that would be 4 and so on.(4th because marrage to give birth)  It is very important that you know everything about yourself before choosing to do something that can harm others.  If everyone wouldn't care, Aids and hiv would be everywhere and no one would be on earth.  This could do a lot of harm.
7193
As you may already know, AIDS is the disease that develops from the viral infection HIV.  All AIDS means is when the person's body falls victim to an everyday infection because of a weakened immune system.  The only sure way to test for HIV is to have an HIV antibody test...  :) hope this helps!
6803
hiv is the virus. aids is the disease that stems from the virus.hiv is a virus that kills your immune system slowly.
724947
AIDS is not the cause by a virus called HIV. In Fact, HIV has never been proven that been exists.
525083
The AIDS epidemic was discovered June 18, 1981, when the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported a cluster of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (now classified as Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia) in five gay men in Los Angeles. Originally dubbed GRID, or Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, health authorities soon realized that nearly half of the people identified with the syndrome were not gay. In 1982, the CDC introduced the term AIDS to describe the newly recognized syndrome.\nThree of the earliest known instances of HIV infection are as follows:\nA plasma sample taken in 1959 from an adult male living in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. \nHIV found in tissue samples from an American teenager who died in St. Louis in 1969. \nHIV found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor who died around 1976. 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.[88] Both HIV-1 and HIV-2 are of primate origin. The origin of HIV-1 is the Central Common Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes troglodytes). It is established that HIV-2 originated from the Sooty Mangabey (Cercocebus atys), an Old World monkey of Guinea Bissau, Gabon, and Cameroon. Freelance journalist Tom Curtis discussed one currently controversial possibility for the origin of HIV/AIDS in a 1992 Rolling Stone magazine article. He put forward what is now known as the OPV AIDS hypothesis, which suggests that AIDS was inadvertently caused in the late 1950s in the Belgian Congo by Hilary Koprowski's research into a polio vaccine. Although subsequently retracted due to libel issues surrounding its claims, the Rolling Stone article motivated another freelance journalist, Edward Hooper, to probe more deeply into this subject. Hooper's research resulted in his publishing a 1999 book, The River, in which he alleged that an experimental oral polio vaccine prepared using chimpanzee kidney tissue was the route through which SIV crossed into humans to become HIV, thus starting the human AIDS pandemic.
965524
People believe that HIV virus first originated from Africa.\nIn 1982 HIV virus was defined the first time in USA community.\nTwo men ( homo sexual ) were captured and brought to the hospital with strange symptom.\nA  scientist had done many research project to find out the role of this virus. \nHe drew the conclusion that virus HIV causes AIDS decease including some distinctive symptom
861783
Causes for AIDS\n\n-Through sex with an infected person\n-Using infected needles\n-Through infected blood transfusions
555509
Dr. David Ho and colleagues from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York told a conference they traced the very first case of HIV infection to a man, David Carr, living in what was then the Belgian Congo in 1959.   \n\nThese scientists believe the HIV virus crossed over from ape polulations to humans in the late 40's or early 50's based on the fact that it must have been present for that long in order for someone to be sick with AIDS in 1959.  Other early HIV infections are the following:\nHIV found in tissue samples from an American teenager who died in St. Louis in 1969. \nMost scientists estimate that the disease developed in Africa around 1930.\nHIV found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor who died around 1976.\n\nThere is another interesting theory out there with some intriguing evidence is that HIV was accidentally introduced to Africa through administration of polio vaccine that was contaminated with HIV from the chimpanzee organs used to make the polio vaccine.  This is a VERY controversial theory since it implies that Western Medicine gave AIDS to Africa.  Here's a summary of the evidence:Overview of the theory\nOne theory of the origin of AIDS is that it developed from contaminated vaccines used in the world's first mass immunisation for polio. There are a number of reasons why this theory is plausible enough to be worthy of further investigation.\n\nThe location coincides dramatically. The earliest known cases of AIDS occurred in central Africa, in the same regions where Koprowski's polio vaccine was given to over a million people in 1957-1960. \nThe timing coincides. There is no documented case of HIV infection or AIDS before 1959. Centuries of the slave trade and European exploitation of Africa exposed Africans and others to all other diseases then known; it is implausible that HIV could have been present and spreading in Africa without being recognised. \nPolio vaccines are grown (cultured) on monkey kidneys which could have been contaminated by SIVs. Polio vaccines could not be screened for SIV contamination before 1985. \nAnother monkey virus, SV-40, is known to have been passed to humans through polio vaccines. A specific pool of Koprowski's vaccine was later shown to have been contaminated by an unknown virus. \nIn order for a virus to infect a different species, it is helpful to reduce the resistance of the new host's immune system. Koprowski's polio vaccine was given to many children less than one month old, before their immune systems were fully developed. Indeed, in one trial, infants were given 15 times the standard dose in order to ensure effective immunisation. \n\nIf this theory is correct, it has serious ethical, health and policy implications. In particular, it points to the danger of interspecies transfer of material through vaccinations, organ transplants, etc., which could lead to new variants of AIDS as well as other new diseases. As well, studying the theory may lead to insights about responding to AIDS and preventing new diseases.\n\nHowever, there has been no sustained attempt to test the theory. This could be done, for example, by testing stocks of polio vaccine for the presence of SIV. An offer to undertake tests was made as early as 1991; only in 2000 were some samples tested, and then only US-made vaccine. Another possibility would be to test stored blood samples in Africa from before 1950. If HIV is found, this would undermine the theory.\n\nThere was a documentary made that details this theory too called "The Origin of AIDS" by Peter Chappell
841447
Aids is the most common condition.
944672
This question about the origins of the HIV virus has been asked (and answered 1000 times) ! But since education about HIV/AIDS is important today, here my Best Answer:\n\nTwo species of HIV infect humans: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is thought to have originated in southern Cameroon after jumping from wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) to humans during the twentieth century. HIV-2 may have originated from the Sooty Mangabey (Cercocebus atys), an Old World monkey of Guinea-Bissau, Gabon, and Cameroon. HIV-1 is the most virulent. It is easily transmitted and is the cause of the majority of HIV infections globally. HIV-2 is less transmittable and is largely confined to West Africa. \n\nAs far as prevention, I suggest you click the second link below: