How did HIV/AIDS originate?

Answer 1

At least one HIV strain did originate in chimpanzees, but the transmission occured through casual contact (animal worker) not via sex!

Two 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 more 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. HIV-1 is the virus that was initially discovered and termed LAV.

Three of the earliest known instances of HIV-1 infection are as follows:

A plasma sample taken in 1959 from an adult male living in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

HIV found in tissue samples from a 15 year old African-American teenager who died in St. Louis in 1969.

HIV found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor who died around 1976.

Although a variety of theories exist explaining the transfer of HIV to humans, no single hypothesis is widely accepted, and the topic remains controversial. Freelance journalist Tom Curtis discussed one 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 simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) crossed into humans to become HIV, thus starting the human AIDS pandemic. This theory is contradicted by an analysis of genetic mutation in primate lentivirus strains that indicates with 95% certainty that the origin of the HIV-1 strain dates to about 1930.

Answer 2

No, no-one f*cked a monkey. Sheesh.

Diseases that affect animals can mutate, and transfer to humans. All that is needed is a go-between. For instance the flea, in the bubonic plague. No Europeans (that I know of) went around screwing rats. However, the plague spread across Europe and killed millions. Same here. HIV/AIDS is contained in the bodily fluids. Strong chance is that a misquito or another animal such as that carried the virus to humans. The virus can also be contracted through a break in the skin.

Answer 3

Hunter's in the jungles of Africa used to (and still do) hunt chimpanzees, which carry a virus called "SIV" for the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus. It got into the hunter's blood when they cut their hands butchering the animals, and somehow eventually mutated into what is now the HIV virus. It used to be believed that viruses could not cross species but now we know that this is not true, and the bird flu virus proves it.

For those claiming that the hunters had sex with the chimpanzees, those animals are extremely strong and very dangerous - any attempts at this would result in being viciously attacked, so this claim is pure nonsense.

Answer 4

If I remember right it started with a little monkey and that monkey had Aids the monkey bit a man and gave the man Aids. I don't know how the monkey got it.

Answer 5

It's been around for a long time. I don't think it passed from monkeys to humans through sex. Viruses tend not to do that. It's much more likely that it passed to humans through eating the flesh of the monkeys. But I don't think anyone is certain.

Answer 6

it is said that a man in africa ate the brain of a monkey, and that is what started it.

Answer 7

It first got started by men being desperate so they had it with monkeys.

Answer 8

natives performing unnatural acts with monkeys

Answer 9

Somebody in Africa F**ked a monkey.

Answer 10

they aren't really sure but most think it went back to monkeys .... they ate them they didn't do anything else with them.... they were little tiny monekys i forget what they were called