A Single Person Brought AIDS to America
Geneticists have traced the arrival of AIDS in America to a single person who came from Haiti in 1969.
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, University of Arizona researchers analyzed archived blood samples from the first five U.S. AIDS patients. All were recent Haitian immigrants. The geneticists then looked at genetic sequences from another 117 people with HIV subtype B, the most common strain of the virus.
After assembling the sequences, the researchers modeled the probability of various HIV family trees. Did the virus go from Africa to the United States? The chance of that, they found, was just .003 percent. Did it go from Africa to Haiti and then to the U.S.? The chance of that was 99.8 percent — within the scope of the model, a near certainty.
They found that Haiti, which contains more HIV strains than any other country, likely served as a breeding ground for the disease between 1966 and 1969, at which point a single person carried it to the United States. From there, the rest is tragic history.
The findings won’t directly produce cures or treatments. They might, however, give insight into how the disease evolved and spread — and that, in turn, could guide research. The next step: tracing the disease back from Haiti to central Africa, where researchers believe it was acquired by visiting Haitian workers.
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A Single Person Brought AIDS to America
Wired.com
you guys are unbelievable. the first all, haiti until now has not had any close relationship with any african nations. finding an african in haiti is almost impossible. what would make it possible now to find an african person in haiti, it’s because of the UN soldiers that are over there now let alone back in the early 60s. and only 2% of the haitians population living with the virus, so i don’t know how it contains more more HIV strains than any other country in the world. since 1804 after this poor nation revolted against slavery. you have been trying everything in your power to bring them down. enough is enough.