Haiti brought HIV to U.S. in 1969: earlier than thought

William Atkins
Friday, 09 November 2007 20:22

Science - Health

A new U.S. study involving blood and genetic mutations points to the retrovirus HIV arriving in the United States from Haiti around the year 1969. Earlier studies had pointed its arrival around 1981.          

U.S. microbiologist Michael Worobey, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona (Tucson), headed a team of researchers whose results appear online (October 31, 2007) and in a future issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The online version is titled “The emergency of HIV/AIDS in the Americas and beyond.”

In their abstract, they state: “HIV-1 group M subtype B was the first HIV discovered and is the predominant variant of AIDS virus in most countries outside of sub-Saharan Africa. However, the circumstances of its origin and emergence remain unresolved. Here we propose a geographic sequence and time line for the origin of subtype B and the emergence of pandemic HIV/AIDS out of Africa.”

The co-authors of the study are: M. Thomas P. Gilbert of the University of Copenhagen; Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh; Gabriela Wlasiuk of the University of Arizona; Thomas J. Spira of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and Arthur E. Pitchenik of the University of Miami.

Other scientists discovered that HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, originated in West African chimpanzees. The virus was caught by humans around 1930, probably as a result of the hunting of these animals. It moved from Africa to Haiti around 1966 (between 1962 and 1970). The researchers found that the virus contained more mutations in Haiti than the United States because it had more time to mutate.

After several false starts, the virus mutated into what is now called subtype B, which started the worldwide epidemic of the disabling immune system virus. HIV, technically the two species of HIV-1 or HIV-2, destroys cells, such as macrophages, dendritic cells, and helper T cells, within the immune system, which eventually causes AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), the disease that is spread through blood and bodily secretion.