AIDS research history

It is 1981. In the USA there are young men who come to the doctors with unusual symptoms: specific pneumonia that has been infant illness so for, certain kind of skin cancer – Kaposi\'s sarcoma that has been elderly people\'s illness. Doctors join these cases and they come to the conclusion that common reason of illnesses is the lack of the immunity.

If the person is healthy, the body can identify the enemy – bacteria, fungus and viruses on its own and can fight with them. If the person is ill, the body doesn\'t fight and shows the reduction of the lymphocytes number.

In 1982 doctors named this illness – AIDS – Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. The enigmatic illness has been spreading. The USA epidemic service is really anxious. There have been studying for large ways and doctors from the whole world have been appealing for them... The fear of being ill has escalated the discrimination.

The real breakthrough was in 1983 when the team of researchers from Pasteur Institute in Paris discovered (cut of ill person\'s lymphocytes) the source of the illness – the virus. The discovery was also done by the Robert Gallo\'s team in National Research Institute of the cancer in the USA.

The virus was named HIV – Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The researches of this illness were going fast since that time. The compilation of the tests anti – HIV which enabled doctors to diagnose infection was the breakthrough in 1985. People could prevent the infections during the blood transfusion and using blood made medicines. Since 1987 there has been established the special programme to fight with AIDS by World Health Organization (WHO) and people have started to produce AZT medicine that has been proved for anti – HIV action.

It is the history of AIDS, researches in a very brief summary but the question – where is this illness from? – is still open.

It is very likely that it came from Africa to us. There is also a hypothesis that the virus (SIV) was passed to human population from African monkeys one day but it is difficult to say, it could have been in the middle of XXth century. It wasn\'t dangerous for animals but for people it proved to be deadly.