HIV came to the US from the Caribbean around 1970, and remained there, multiplying quietly, for about 10 years, before it was identified in the '80s.
The analysis of eight whole genomes collected from serum samples of patients homosexuals between 1978 and 1979 shows that in that decade the virus had already diversified in the genetic profile, and
that its characteristics were very similar to a registered strain in Caribbean, particularly in Haiti, in the early
70s. The study of the University of Arizona in Tucson has been published in Nature.
Infiltrator. Research shows that when the first patient with HIV died in New York, in 1981, the virus was already multiplying and differentiating between that city and San Francisco for at least 10 years: evidence which effectively absolves Gaetan Dugas, flight attendant French Canadian regarded for many years mistakenly "patient zero."
A PRECIOUS HELP. In 1982, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Americans were investigating the origin of the spread of Kaposi's sarcoma, a type of skin cancer that we know now connected to the virus, three men of three different nations told of having had relations with Dugas . The contribution of man, that he was able to recall the names of 72 partners had in the previous three years, it was critical to establish the sexual transmission of the virus.
A BAD REPUTATION. But the steward of the memory and the media hype did go the wrong message: that Dugas had been the first to carry the virus in North America. The truth is that the man, who died in 1984 after years of defamation, was only one of thousands of infected people in the initial period.
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