Disease of the Month: HIV/AIDS

HIV first emerged as a threat to humanity in the early 1980s. It spread so fast that initially there were fears that it might wipe us all out. Happily, there now seems no danger of that. Genetic research indicates that HIV originated in west-central Africa during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. AIDS was first recognised by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981 and its cause, HIV, identified in the early 1980s. Over the past 27 years, nearly 25 million people have died from AIDS. HIV/AIDS causes debilitating illness and premature death in people duri...