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Medicine Science

AIDS Origin Traced To 1920s Kinshasa 162

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."
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AIDS Origin Traced To 1920s Kinshasa

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  • by alen ( 225700 ) on Saturday October 04, 2014 @12:50PM (#48063657)

    i was across the river back in 1997. Ironically one of the soldiers i was with said that if he was going to get AIDS, he wanted to get it right there at the source

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04, 2014 @12:56PM (#48063697)
    I'm glad that all the deniers have moved on to climate change, and the aids denial has pretty much died down.
    • aids denial??? i cant recall ever hearing anyone deny that aids exist.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by nitehawk214 ( 222219 )

        Well more accurately I think it is that they are denying that HIV causes AIDS.

        I disagree that the deniers have moved on to something else. Shit, the Catholic church still claims condoms cause AIDS. And most of the religious right claims it only affects homosexuals.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by Anonymous Coward

            So how is this the fault of the Catholic Church again?

            Because people who didn't listen to Catholic teachings against fornication, for some reason still listened to old Catholic teachings against contraception?

          • there aren't a lot of people that do the 'verify with an hiv/aids test' in a meaningful way because it can take 6 months from being infected to it being detectable...

            • Unless you've got a pretty incompetent lab administering the tests, the window for "silent" infection (one that doesn't show up during a test) is closer to 6 weeks than 6 months. There is often such a window, which is why tests really should be repeated at least once, with the two test samples separated by the duration of the window.
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by ultranova ( 717540 )

            So how is this the fault of the Catholic Church again?

            Oh, and raping little virgin girls won't cure AIDs. As long as the Catholic Church speaks against contraception, the Catholic Church can and should be hold responsible for any and all consequences, such as the spread of AIDS. And yes, that includes rapes carried out from desperation as a result of said spread.

            There's a more general point here: you can't wield power yet disown the consequences. Moving from a bunch of selfish, irresponsible individuals a

            • Somebody should sit down with you and explain this, because you are seriously fucked up in your thinking.

          • Oh, and raping little virgin girls won't cure AIDs. So how is this the fault of the Catholic Church again?

            Because raping little virgin boys won't cure AIDS either.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Well more accurately I think it is that they are denying that HIV causes AIDS.

          I disagree that the deniers have moved on to something else. Shit, the Catholic church still claims condoms cause AIDS. And most of the religious right claims it only affects homosexuals.

          No, the catholic church does not claim condoms cause AIDS. It does state that certain types of condoms, like lambskin and other natural conds, have microscopic pores that are too small for sperm to pass through thus preventing pregnancy but not too small for the HIV virus to pass through, thus allowing transmission of HIV. It seems that the medical community is in agreement with them on that.

      • Re:climate change (Score:4, Interesting)

        by markass530 ( 870112 ) <markass530&gmail,com> on Saturday October 04, 2014 @03:03PM (#48064319) Homepage

        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

        • really? i mean wow thats crazy to think of such ignorance (especially from someone who was bandmates with a needle user)
          • Yea he was pretty big on it for a while, throwing concerts around it and everything, then one day randomly he started acting like all that never happened. If you google it you can find a little info about his aids denying past

  • So remember: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cirby ( 2599 ) on Saturday October 04, 2014 @01:21PM (#48063809)

    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: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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: (Score:4, Insightful)

      by markass530 ( 870112 ) <markass530&gmail,com> on Saturday October 04, 2014 @03:07PM (#48064341) Homepage

      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

  • So there was no monkey business with... ehm... chimps that led to the species jump?
    • Consumptions of infected simian meat has been the explanation for a very long time. Why does everyone seem surprised?
      • 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.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          I don't think " HIV can't spread orally" necessarily applies to actually consuming infected meat. Then again, it's not the consumption of the meat that's being blamed - it's direct exposure to infected blood while handling fresh chimp carcases in order to prepare the meat.

        • by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Saturday October 04, 2014 @02:27PM (#48064157)

          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.

          • There is a risk that HIV can spread orally to someone with gingivitis (bleeding gums), and I wonder if the jump from bush meat to humans in 1920s might have happened when someone with gingivitis ate some bloody bush meat.

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

          If you have cuts, scratches, or open sores in your mouth, it certainly can.

        • Butcher has an open wound, during the course of his work simian blood makes contact with said wound, ==>> Transmission complete,

          • Equally plausible explanation:

            Butcher creates an open wound while carving the raw bushmeat, either for self consumption or for sale to others, ==> transmission complete. Think of the last time you had an accident cut yourself cutting food and there you are.

            • by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

              last time I accidentally cut myself I wasn't handling food, I was cutting steel framing with a hacksaw and caught a bit of burr. It's still in my arm two weeks later.

        • by GNious ( 953874 )

          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.

          Uhm, I think you've gotten the concept of Oral Sex wrong, if you think it is largely similar to daily consumption of meat...

        • by iluvcapra ( 782887 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @09:45AM (#48067949)

          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 [wikipedia.org] 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.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday October 04, 2014 @01:47PM (#48063949)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

          it's still called the gay flu, I've got a Coronet educational video somewhere that discusses sexual relationships and why sticking your willy in another man's bum is so dangerous - 'cos the first time it happens you'll catch teh plague!!1one

      • because monkey fucking makes for a much better story.

        obviously.
    • by Megol ( 3135005 )

      Unlike what you may believe the amount of people who have sex with animals is very few and the amount of people that have sex with wild animals approaches zero.
      On the other hand a huge amount of people do hunt and handle the corpses of misc. wild animals (called "bush meat" in the story)... And even people in industrial nations (with controlled breeding programs) still die of meat-carried diseases that proper handling and cooking would simply eliminate.

      Just ask yourself: what is most likely?

      • by Ecuador ( 740021 )

        the amount of people that have sex with wild animals approaches zero.

        You are obviously too new to this internet thing, otherwise you would be at least aware of the 90's sensation that was dolphinsex.org...

      • by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

        yeah, it's so rare they make jokes out of it in shows like South Park where they pick the most niche activities like ziplining, roadtripping, declaring war on other countries and fucking chickens and rip them a new one. ::rolleyes::.

  • Did they eat chimps for food?

    Or worse.... wait that's unthinkable!

  • The list of cities was Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Kinshasa, Karachi, Bangkock, Beijing.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    1920 was not that long ago - less than 100 years. Are there any eye witnesses who can report encountering someone who died of a mysterious wasting disease?

  • ::couhcoughOutbreakcoughcough::

    So sorry, a bit Dustin Hoffman in here, setting my throat off.

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