The human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, attacks the immune system, making victims vulnerable to infections and diseases. HIV causes AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), a disease first noticed by researchers in the early 1980s when increasing numbers of gay men, mostly in New York and California, began developing infections and cancers that could not be treated through available methods. It has since been learned that the disease has been around long before 1980. It may be related to a similar simian immunodeficiency virus. The most common theory is that the disease spread to humans by hunters in Africa who killed and ate chimpanzees or came into contact with their blood.
Early Discovery
An aggressive form of Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, and a rare form of pneumonia were being diagnosed in many gay men by 1981, according to AVERT, an international AIDS society. By the end of that year, other population groups were included in the risk category, including drug addicts who used needles. In 1982, investigators discovered the disease was infecting high numbers of Haitians and hemophiliacs. Hundreds of cases were being reported throughout the U.S.
Anxiety and Fear
The disease did not have an official name until late 1982, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) properly defined it later that year. As women with no risk factors began getting AIDS, anxiety among the public began to grow. Fear continued as cases developed around the world. It was learned that the disease could also be spread through sexual intercourse among heterosexuals.
Virus Found
Doctors at the Institute Pasteur in France reported isolating the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, in May 1983. It was later learned that scientists may have isolated the virus in an early case of AIDS in 1959. The virus is believed to have originated in Africa. Many people contracted AIDS in the early 1980s through blood transfusions tainted with HIV. FDA-approved HIV antibody tests were developed in 1985 so blood could be screened in hospitals.
Transmission
By the late 1980s, scientists began learning more about how the AIDS virus was transmitted. Transmission occurs through anal, vaginal or oral sex with an infected person, sharing needles with an infected person, being exposed to HIV before birth and through breastfeeding. Public fears began to wane as people found the virus was not transmitted through daily activities such as hand shaking, hugging, eating off of plates or drinking from glasses. The virus cannot live long outside the body. Anti-HIV drugs and inhibitors were developed in the late 1980s to help treat patients and extend their lives.
Case Numbers
More than 500,000 Americans have died from AIDS, but deaths and transmission have been reduced as more people learned prevention. HIV infections in the U.S. peaked at about 130,000 cases in the mid 1980s, according to the CDC. Those figures were as low as 50,000 by the early 1990s, but rose slightly later in the decade before leveling off at about 55,000 in 2001. Millions of people worldwide have contracted the disease.
