How was HIV discovered?

Answer 1

AIDS was first clinically observed between late 1980 and early 1981. A group of five men showed symptoms of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), a rare oppourtinistic infection that was known to present itself in people with very compromised immune systems. Soon thereafter, another set of men developed a rare skin cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma (KP). Many more cases of PCP and KP quickly emerged, alerting U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A CDC task force was formed to monitored the outbreak. After recognizing a pattern of anomalous symptoms presenting themselves in patients, the task force named the condition acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).[153]

In 1983, two separate research groups lead by Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier independently declared that a novel retrovirus may have been infecting AIDS patients, and published their findings in the same issue of the journal Science.[154][155] Gallo claimed that a virus his group had isolated from an AIDS patient was strikingly similar in shape to other human T-lymphotropic viruses (HLTVs) his group had been the first to isolate. Gallo's group called their newly isolated virus HLTV-III. At the same time, Montagnier's group isolated a virus from a patient presenting lymphadenopathy (swelling of the lymph nodes) of the neck and physical weakness, two classic symptoms of AIDS. Contradicting the report from Gallo's group, Montagnier and his colleagues showed that core proteins of this virus were immunologically different from those of HTLV-I. Montagnier's group named their isolated virus lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV).[153]