By , scientists had begun to connect the dots between these new diagnoses, plus a number of other opportunistic infections. At this point, there was no direct line connecting these early infectious diseases to AIDS. It took researchers several years to fully establish the connection. The initial concern of the medical community was one of contagion, as these mystery viruses apparently spread rapidly among affected populations and began with few symptoms.
It was noted early on that young gay men were most likely to receive an HIV diagnosis; a secondary population of needle-using drug abusers was quickly identified as an at-risk patient group. It would be the middle of the following year before it was suggested that HIV was either sexually transmitted or blood-borne on dirty needles. Scientists not only grappled with a new killer illness that was poorly understood, but the virus itself exhibited new characteristics almost as fast as researchers could identify them.
Hemophiliacs, who routinely receive blood transfusions, were also identified as an at-risk patient group. New cases of heterosexual transmission reinforced early theories that HIV was purely sexually transmitted; however, this theory had to be discarded as mother-child in utero transmission was documented. There was considerable disagreement among the medical community about how to refer to this new syndrome.
Given the sociological parameters of known HIV patients in , early scientists labeled the group of mystery illnesses as a gay-related immune deficiency, gay cancer or community-acquired immune dysfunction. Ultimately, as groups of at-risk patients broadened, researchers dispensed with population-based terminology. By this time there were nearly documented cases in 23 states , all of which had appeared within a year's time.
Other countries across the globe experienced similar outbreaks, and the CDC and WHO began to glimpse the true scope of this scourge. Particularly in its earlier years, HIV was only understood to be viral, deadly, and highly contagious via unknown means. These variables led to considerable panic on the part of professionals and laypeople alike. Fear fueled prejudice of populations perceived to be at the highest risk for HIV infection. Drug users and homosexuals bore the brunt of the discrimination.
In one national broadcast , televangelist Jerry Falwell echoed the sentiments of some conservative Americans by declaring God had sent AIDS as retribution for the sins of drug using and gay communities. Individuals far outside of at-risk populations overreacted to potential exposure to HIV; mass hysteria resulted in reactions like hemophiliac student Ryan White's expulsion from middle school and a number other forms of unwarranted discrimination. As scientists closed in on the source of this illness, public policymakers in America reacted to the epidemic.
Bathhouses and clubs catering to gay clientele were closed down, and law enforcement personnel were issued gloves and masks to protect them against potential exposure. The first needle exchange programs were instituted; the FDA began to consider whether the nation's supply of banked blood was safe.
The concept of "safe sex," now considered standard behavior, was first introduced to the global populace. In late , the global presence of the mysterious virus motivated European authorities and the WHO to classify the growing number of diagnoses as an epidemic. In addition to the outbreak in the U. Of particular concern was an outbreak in central Africa among heterosexual patients. In the U. At the end of and the beginning of , the U. Originally a chemotherapy drug, AZT worked so well during its trial that the FDA halted the trial on the grounds that it would be unethical to deprive those patients who received a placebo of the actual drug.
A team at the University of Oxford and the University of Leuven, in Belgium, tried to reconstruct HIV's "family tree" and find out where its oldest ancestors came from. The research group analysed mutations in HIV's genetic code. By reading those mutational marks, the research team rebuilt the family tree and traced its roots. 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. Yet only one cross-species jump, HIV-1 subgroup M, went on to infect millions of people across every country in the world. The answer to why this happened lies in the era of black and white film and the tail-end of the European empires. In the s, Kinshasa called Leopoldville until was part of the Belgian Congo. Prof Oliver Pybus said: "It was a very large and very rapidly growing area and colonial medical records show there was a high incidence of various sexually transmitted diseases.
Large numbers of male labourers were drawn to the city, distorting the gender balance until men outnumbered women two to one, eventually leading to a roaring sex trade. Prof Pybus added: "There are two aspects of infrastructure that could have helped. Around one million people were using Kinshasa's railways by the end of the s.
And just four years later, in record Throughout millennia, people have fostered some pretty irrational ideas about how infectious diseases such as plague and cholera were spread. Some of those notions—like the idea that the ancient Cyprian plague could be caught simply by staring into the face of someone It connected communities and allowed them to share Carried by World War I doughboys returning home from Europe, the newly virulent virus spread first from Boston to New York and Philadelphia before traveling West to infect Live TV.
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Daniel Webster. History Uncut: Ryan White Pandemics That Changed History In the realm of infectious diseases, a pandemic is the worst case scenario. Black Death The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mids. How a New Vaccine Was Developed in Record Time in the s The invention of the modern mumps vaccine is the stuff of medical textbook legend. How Diseases Spread: Ways People Have Tried to Explain Pandemics Through History Throughout millennia, people have fostered some pretty irrational ideas about how infectious diseases such as plague and cholera were spread.
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