Timeline of HIV/AIDS

Pre-1980s

HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) probably transfers to humans in Africa between 1884 and 1924.

1930s - Researchers believe that sometime in the 1930s a form of simian immunodeficiency virus jumped to humans in central Africa. The mutated virus becomes HIV-1

1959 – The first known case of HIV in a human occurs in a person who died in the Congo, later confirmed as having HIV infection from his preserved blood samples.

In New York City, a 49-year-old American shipping clerk dies of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, a disease closely associated with AIDS.

1960s - HIV-2, a viral variant found in West Africa, is thought to have transferred to people from sooty mangabey monkeys in Guinea-Bissau during this period

1964 – AZT (zidovudine) was synthesized as anti cancer drug.

1966 - Genetic studies of the virus indicate that, in or about 1966, HIV first arrived in the Americas, infecting a single person in Haiti.

1968 - A 2003 analysis of HIV types found in the United States, compared to known mutation rates, suggests that the virus may have first arrived in the United States in this year.

1969 - A St. Louis teenager, identified only as Robert R., dies of an illness that baffles his doctors. Eighteen years later, molecular biologists at Tulane University in New Orleans test samples of his remains and find evidence of HIV present.

1975 - The first reports of wasting and other symptoms, later determined to be AIDS, are reported in residents of Africa.

1976 - Norwegian sailor Arvid Noe dies; it is later determined that he contracted HIV/AIDS in Africa during the early 1960s.

1977 - Danish physician Grethe Rask dies of AIDS contracted in Africa. A San Francisco prostitute gives birth to the first of three children who would later be diagnosed with AIDS, and whose blood, when tested after their deaths, would reveal HIV infection. The mother would herself die of AIDS in May 1987. She was clearly infected by 1977 and perhaps earlier.

1978 - A Portuguese man known as Senhor Jose dies; he will later be confirmed as the first known infection of HIV-2. He was believed to have been exposed to the disease in Guinea-Bissau in 1966.

Pre-1980s

1980 – April 24, San Francisco resident Ken Horne, the first AIDS case in the United States to be recognized at the time, is reported to Center for Disease Control with Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). He was also suffering from Cryptococcus at the time.

On October 31, French-Canadian flight attendant Gaëtan Dugas pays his first known visit to New York City bathhouses. He would later be deemed "Patient Zero" for his apparent connection to many early cases of AIDS in the United States.

Rick Wellikoff, a Brooklyn schoolteacher, dies of AIDS in New York City on December 23. He is the 4th American to have died from the new disease.

1981 - By the end of the year, 121 people are known to have died from the disease. First known case in the United Kingdom.

1982 - July 27, the term AIDS (for acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is proposed at a meeting in Washington of gay-community leaders, federal bureaucrats and the CDC.

First known case in Italy, Brazil and Canada.

1983 - In January, Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, isolates a retrovirus that kills T-cells from the lymph system of a gay AIDS patient. This retrovirus would be called by several names, including LAV and HTLV-III before being named HIV in 1986.

Australia has first death from AIDS in Melbourne. Australia has one of the lowest infection rates in the world.

AIDS is diagnosed in Mexico for the first time. HIV can be traced in the country back to 1981.

1984 - April 23, Dr. Robert Gallo, has discovered the probable cause of AIDS: the retrovirus subsequently named human immunodeficiency virus or HIV in 1986.

1985 - First officially reported cases in China. FDA approves first AIDS antibody screening tests (ELISA) for use on all donated blood and plasma intended for transfusion.

1986 - HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is adopted as name of the retrovirus that was first proposed as the cause of AIDS by Luc Montagnier of France. First officially known cases in the U.S.S.R. and India.

1987 - AZT (zidovudine), the first antiretroviral drug, becomes available to treat HIV.

1988 - December 1, the first World AIDS Day.

1989 - James Oleske, the first U.S. physician to discover AIDS in newborns during AIDS' early years, when many thought it was only homosexually-spread.

1990s

1992 - The first combination drug therapies for HIV are introduced. Such "cocktails" are more effective than AZT alone and slow down the development of drug resistance.

1993 - The PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technique is developed by Kary Mullis, improving the researches on microbiology and genetics, also widely used in AIDS research.

1994 - AZT is shown to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

1995 - Saquinavir, a new type of protease inhibitor drug, becomes available to treat HIV. Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) becomes possible. Within two years, death rates due to AIDS will have plummeted in the developed world.

1996 - Robert Gallo's discovery that some natural compounds known as chemokines can block HIV and halt the progression of AIDS is hailed by Science magazine as one of that year's most important scientific breakthroughs.

1997 - The most recent estimate of the number of Americans infected (with HIV), 750,000, Based on the Bangui definition the WHO's cumulative number of reported AIDS cases from 1980 through 1997 for all of Africa is 620,000. For comparison, the cumulative total of AIDS cases in the USA through 1997 is 641,087.

1999 - Studies suggest that a retrovirus, SIVcpz (simian immunodeficiency virus) from the common chimpanzee Pan troglodytes, may have passed to human populations in west equatorial Africa during the twentieth century and developed into various types of HIV.

2000s

2000 - WHO estimates between 15% and 20% of new HIV infections worldwide are the result of blood transfusions, where the donors were not screened or inadequately screened for HIV.

2001 - September 21, FDA licenses the first nucleic acid test (NAT) systems intended for screening of blood and plasma donors.

2003 - The first AIDS vaccine candidate to undergo a major trial is found to be ineffective.

2004 - January 5, "Individual risk of acquiring HIV and experiencing rapid disease progression is not uniform within populations", says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of NIAID.

2005 - A highly resistant strain of HIV linked to rapid progression to AIDS is identified in New York City.

2006 - November 9, SIV found in Gorillas.

2007 - Around 33 million people are living with HIV, according to revised estimates. Another major HIV vaccine trial is halted after preliminary results show no benefit.

2008 - Nearly three million people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries had access to anti-retroviral drugs by the end of 2007. Another 6.7 million people are still in need.

UNAIDS says more than 25 million people have died of AIDS and, as of 2007; 33 million people were infected with HIV. AIDS deaths in 2007 numbered two million, although this was the second decline in consecutive years, thanks to anti-HIV drugs.

Barre-Sinoussi and Montagnier share the Nobel Medicine Prize for their discovery of the HIV virus.

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The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is an unprecedented crisis that requires an unprecedented response. In particular it requires solidarity -- between the healthy and the sick, between rich and poor, and above all, between richer and poorer nations. We have 30 million orphans already. How many more do we have to get, to wake up?" Kofi Annan.