New Study Shows HIV Epidemic Started Spreading in New York in 1970

A new genetic study confirms theories that the global epidemic of HIV and AIDS started in New York around 1970, and it also clears the name of a gay flight attendant long vilified as being "Patient Zero."

Researchers got hold of frozen samples of blood taken from patients years before the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS was ever recognised, and teased out genetic material from the virus from that blood.

They use it to show that HIV was circulating widely during the 1970s, and certainly before people began noticing a “gay plague” in New York in the early 1980s.

Read more at www.nbcnews.com

Photo By Aji Sutopo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons