Origin of HIV

The origin of HIV is still a big mystery for the scientists. There are many theories that try to explain the first invasion of this virus into the human body. Yet, there has not been any complete consensus nor a disagreement between the several schools of thought regarding origin of HIV.

However, every one agrees to two proven theories.

• The HIV belongs to the retrovirus family, which is characterized by its ability to affect the immune system of the patient. To be further subdivided, it may be called a lentivirus. The term lentivirus, signifies slow virus, after a long period of dormancy, affect the immune system of the patient at a very slow pace.
• The HIV virus has derived from the SIV virus that exists in the primates. HIV is the evolutionary form of SIV.

There have been several theories that explain how the virus came into contact with the human body, to mark the origin of HIV.

• The Hunter’s Theory- It says that, a hunter, at some point, must have eaten the blood of these primates, and thus the SIV got transferred into the blood of the human and took the form of HIV. Alternatively, the blood maligned with SIV must have got into a wounded part of a hunter’s body and got blended with his blood, to infect it gradually with the newly adopted form, HIV.
• Oral polio vaccine theory- Edward Hooper, the profounder of that theory suggests that, in 1950s, during a mass oral polio vaccine program in Africa, the SIV must have got transferred into the human body at a large-scale. The vaccines, which were derived from the kidney tissues of some local chimpanzees, were suspected to be infected with SIV. Thus a large number of people got the disease.
• The contaminated needle theory- This theory is an extension of the Hunter’s theory. It says, that during the 1950s, ignorance and lack of research prompted the medical professionals to use the same syringe several times without sterilizing it. So a sample of contaminated blood must have further propagated the disease to several others.
• The colonialism theory states that during the period of colonial rule, the local Africans were forced into labour camps with a very poor standard of living and lack of food. In this situation, one of these labours must have consumed the flesh and blood of an infected chimpanzee out of compulsion. And the infection of that blood got transferred to other bodies through sexual tracks, as prostitutes were commonly hired in all labour camps.
• The conspiracy theory states that AIDS is a man-made strategy to kill a large number of homosexuals and blacks at a mass scale through small pox and Hepatitis B vaccines, formed by Special Cancer Virus Programs (SCVP).

The first few known cases of HIV

In 1976, an African-American was diagnosed with HIV, as he died in St. Louis City Hospital. It was suspected that he was a sex-worker. This patient was a 15 years old male, named Robert.R. In 1976 Arvid Noe, a Norwegian sailor, and his kid were diagnosed with AIDS. It was studied that the sailor had active sexual life when he visited Western coast of Africa. The tissues of these three people showed, that the disease got transferred to the wife from the husband, and the child inherited the virus from the mother.

Thus the origin of HIV has a contemplating history, which the scientists are still pondering over. Despite several attempts, they could not arrive at a common consensus, which would establish the truth behind the origin of HIV.