Aids: Origin of pandemic 'was 1920s Kinshasa'(bbc.com)

41 pointsby disbelief12 anni fa13 comments

Aids: Origin of pandemic 'was 1920s Kinshasa'

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29442642

5 comments

This is hardly news. The origin locale and timeframe (acquired zoonotically from Chimpanzees north of Kinshasa, probably around 1908, travelling by river to Kinshasa and Brazzaville, where social conditions permitted amplification and adaptation to human hosts) have been strongly supported by evidence for about a decade. David Quammen discusses it in detail in his book "Spillover". While this study adds more evidence supporting the theory, that area and timeframe was pretty much accepted as fact in the research community for some time.

k-mcgrady12 anni fa

It's news for those of us not in the AIDS research community.

jacquesm12 anni fa

That book is very widely spread outside of the AIDS research community, and is only peripherally about AIDS/HIV. Even lay-people are reading it in droves. Definitely a good read if you have the time.

k-mcgrady12 anni fa

Thanks, I'll check it out.

omonra12 anni fa

I'd recommend The Origins of Aids - it's a great book (wrote for the laymen) that explores this very topic.

Fascinating read - published a few years ago.

rafaelm12 anni fa

Radiolab did a pretty interesting episode [1] regarding investigation in to Patient Zero. They talk about Typhoid Mary and Aids. I highly recommend it. [1]-http://www.radiolab.org/story/169879-patient-zero/

kretor12 anni fa

A Kinshasa origin around 1900 was already suggested in 2008:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9525342...

waterfowl12 anni fa

it's real strange to me that the BBC says "Aids" and not "AIDS" when it's an acronym. Still interesting.

edit: especially when they say HIV and not Hiv

feynmanistheman12 anni fa

The Brits seem to do it for acronyms you pronounce, i.e. Fifa or Aids, but not the ones you spell out like HIV.

chriswarbo12 anni fa

> acronyms you pronounce

> the ones you spell out

If you're looking to distinguish these, you can use the term "initialism" for the latter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Nomenclature

feynmanistheman12 anni fa

Ah! Thanks, I knew there was a word for it.

kazinator12 anni fa

> roaring sex trade

Possible allusion to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties

x201s12 anni fa

Roaring Twenties comes from standard use of the word roaring in British English http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/roaring