Identifying the Cause

Early in 1984 two separate teams of researchers, on different continents, announced that they had isolated the AIDS virus. Professor Luc Montagnier at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute in the United States independently reported isolating the virus that is the probable cause of AIDS. This virus attacks a subgroup of white blood cells called T-4 lymphocytes. Thus, the French called it lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV), while the Americans called it human T-cell lymphotropic virus-III (HTLV-III).

[Picture on page 3]

The AIDS virus budding from white blood cells

[Credit Line]

Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, Ga.

WHERE did the AIDS virus come from? The prevailing opinion in European and American medical circles is that its origin is Central Africa. The African green monkey carries a similar virus, and it is thought that the virus found its way into humans through their close contact with infected monkeys.

But AIDS victims were first identified in the United States. How was the virus supposed to have reached them? By way of Haiti, according to popular opinion. Many Haitians visited Africa during a cultural exchange program in the mid-1970’s. Later, it is said, homosexuals, infected while vacationing in Haiti, carried AIDS to New York.

Such theories, however, are strongly opposed by Africans, who call them “a propaganda campaign.” Dr. V. A. Orinda, the editor of an African medical publication, suggests that tourists from around the world introduced AIDS to Africa. Admittedly, no one knows for sure where the AIDS virus came from.