Speed: how it all began
Year 1981.New York and San Francisco are two American cities with the highest concentration of homosexuals and a high level of medicine. Here, for the first time a previously unknown disease was described in a group of young people, named a little later ADS( in Russian AIDS - syndrome of acquired immune deficiency).
To be more exact: there were reports that young people contracted pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma. It was strange that the inflammation of the lungs did not respond to treatment. Yes, and the diagnosis of "Kaposi's sarcoma" in this case was puzzling: it was thought before that it is - the disease of the elderly. ..
The phenomenon of immune deficiency was originally tried to explain the peculiarities of sexual behavior of male homosexuals. So, it was certainly proved that the sperm introduced into the rectum, causes suppression of immunity. However, earlier such a disease in homosexuals was not!
However, in the behavior of today's homosexuals there are features - just in the late 70's they started using nitrites. These special substances, used by homosexuals to increase sexual potency and reduce the tone of the muscles of the anus, revealed an immunosuppressive effect.
Meanwhile, there were new patients who did not have homosexual contacts. ..
At the end of 1983, French researchers( Mont-Tanier et al.) And then American( Gallo et al.) Isolated the virus from AIDS patients and their sexual partnershuman immunodeficiency virus( HIV).The virus was found in the blood and semen, which exactly corresponded to the transmission of the disease with blood and during sexual intercourse.
It is believed that HIV precursors began to circulate in Africa among monkeys many thousands of years ago. But when and why there was a fatal mutation - is unknown. However, in the history of mankind this has already happened: in the very fact of the appearance of a new virus there is nothing surprising. However, in order for it to spread, suitable social conditions are also needed.
Imagine the process of the emergence of a new disease can be so. When cutting a carcass of a monkey, the hunter injured his hand and through this wound a virus entered his organism. Then, during sexual intercourse, the hunter's wife contracted, then, perhaps, another woman. ..
If our hypothetical monkey hunter, living in a remote forest village, infected only his women, the disease would not have spread far.
If the victim is a prostitute, whose number in Africa has risen sharply due to the growth of cities, the spread of the disease began at a rapid pace.
It is possible, however, that the mutation of the virus did not occur in Africa, but the process of distribution was one - intimate human relationships.
In Australia, the first AIDS patient was a homosexual who returned from the United States.
In India, a prostitute serving chauffeurs near a large highway.
In Germany and Czechoslovakia - homosexuals who had connections with foreigners.
K. - the first AIDS patient found in the Russian Federation - a homosexual, he worked as an interpreter in Tanzania. Returning to his homeland, K. had sexual relations with more than 20 young people 18-20 years. Not all - only five of them - contracted the AIDS virus. These young people did not become homosexuals, later they had sexual relations with 24 women. Three of them got infected, and one - a student of the 9th grade. Among the infected was a donor who systematically donated blood, five more people were infected with it, including two children.