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HISTORY OF VIRUS ORIGIN AND
EVOLUTION VIH/SIDA.- .- Monkey
Man
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HIV / AIDS is a pandemic.
It is estimated that the world is
between 40 to 45 million people
HIV-positive. The areas with the highest
prevalence are Sub-Saharan Africa,
India, Southeast Asia. In those areas,
men and women are equally affected
because the main route of transmission
is heterosexual contact.
In North America, it is estimated that
between 1 to 2 million HIV-positive men
and women, most of them in the United
States. Between 60-70% of patients are
men, but the rate of new infections in
women (especially black and Latino) is
increasing.
The great pandemic of the second half of
the twentieth century, AIDS (acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome) was first
described in 1981 in New York and San
Francisco among gay men, who had rare
diseases such as Kaposi's sarcoma and
Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (P.
jirovecii today), gave the first
indication that the epidemic could be
caused by an infectious agent. The
identification of hemophiliacs,
recipients of blood transfusion and
blood products and intravenous drug
users were persons at high risk of
developing AIDS, supported the idea that
the disease was caused by an infectious
agent transmitted by blood. In 1982 when
it was shown that CD4 + T lymphocytes,
was the primary cell line, involved in
this disease is attributed to a new
retrovirus of human T-cell lymphotropic
(HTLV-1), was involved in etiology.
Shortly thereafter identified, the
infection is caused by a human
retrovirus, HIV (human immunodeficiency
virus) belongs to the family
Retroviridae.
Two retrovirus producing
immunodeficiency in humans, the most
virulent and widespread HIV-1 is very
similar to the immunodeficiency virus in
apes VIS. HIV-2 is less virulent and is
spread mainly in West Africa. The first
analysis of the genetic material of HIV
that had showed a tremendous resemblance
to the VIS (viruses of the simian
immunodeficiency), a family of viruses
affecting apes of central Africa where
he also began to identify AIDS cases
almost from the beginning . At present,
thanks to genetic studies that have
compared the genetic material of both
families of virus, human and ape, is
accepted by the scientific community
that HIV is a descendant of the VIS
virus that affects monkeys, and VIS the
ability to mutate and adapt to human
environment.
The epidemic is recent, the first cases
reported in Africa and Europe dating
back to 1959, our blood taken in 1959 of
a patient in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo and Northern America in 1968,
tissue samples of a couple who died in
St Louis 1969 and another tissue sample
from a Norwegian marine who died 1976.
In the mid-'70s, the pandemic begins,
and seemingly healthy young gay men
begin to be diagnosed with a rare form
of skin cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma,
usually only affects elderly patients,
and a rare lung infection called
Pneumocystis carinii Neumocistis.
Atlanta, USA-Spring 1981, pentamidine is
used in parasitic pneumonia that was
diagnosed in five young gay Los Angeles.
New York, USA-1981.-Spring Dr. Alvin F.
Friedman-Kien, reporting the first two
cases of Kaposi's sarcoma in two
homosexual patients in the city of New
York.
On June 5, 1981, a report MMWR
(Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report)
weekly report of morbidity and
mortality, was published by the CDC (Center
Disease Control) in Atlanta, "cases of
pneumocystosis," on page 2, volume 30,
issue 21, a history for being the first
article to talk about this disease, five
patients of homosexual men in Los
Angeles, at the end of 1980 have been
diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii
Neumocistis (now jirovecii N.). The
disease was known by several names such
as GRID (gay related immune disorder).
Bethesda, USA, Winter 1982 Robert Gallo
described human retroviruses from the
same family in patients affected by a
little common variety of leukemia and he
called HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 (H for human T
cells by T, L by leukemia virus and V)
In 1982, the CDC reported the presence
of disease in Haitians and hemophiliacs,
and concludes that the syndrome is
transmitted by an infectious agent and
decides to call it AIDS (acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome) and begins to
be regarded as an epidemic, not only for
homosexuals.
Paris, France, Winter 1983, Professor
Luc Montagnier, of the Louis Pasteur
Institute in Paris, began the research
with human retrovirus, a node from the
neck of a French stylist.
In 1983, already known with great
certainty that the infection is spread
through sexual contact with male
homosexuals, not tested blood
transfusions, intravenous drug use with
contaminated needles and syringes. Also
cases of AIDS were reported in women
without other risk factors, suggesting
that transmission was through
heterosexual sex.
That same year the Institute Pasteur in
France, reports the isolation and
identification of viruses that can cause
AIDS.
In addition, the CDC published the first
recommendations of health care workers
to prevent transmission. In October of
that year the WHO (World Health
Organization), in Denmark, reports that
this date is 2803 cases of AIDS in the
U.S. and that by the end of the year the
number of reported cases can reach the
3065 to 1294, deaths.
In 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo, the NIH
(National Institute of Health) USA,
discovered the virus that causes AIDS,
and called it HTLV-III.
In 1985, continuing disputes over where
it was discovered the etiological agent
that caused AIDS, Pasteur Institute or
NIH. The first diagnostic test to detect
the virus was marketed.
Also in that year were shown the condom
to prevent the spread of HIV in central
Africa, AIDS cases began to be reported
under the name "Slims Disease",
describing the symptoms of chronic
weight loss.
In 1987, the drug AZT (Retrovir), which
was initially used to treat cancer, the
first drug approved to treat HIV.
The rest of the 80 was more or less the
same, the FDA expanded the use of drugs
and the drug cost decreases.
In the 90s, takes place a more positive
action in the fight against AIDS. A
second drug to treat HIV, was approved
and clinical studies of combination
therapy to begin, "cocktail," as being
standardized treatment to date.
In 1995, the FDA approves the first
protease inhibitor (PI) Invirase (saquinavir).
In the following years, two more IPs,
Norvir (ritonavir) and Crixivan (indinavir),
are approved with other new classes of
drugs, non-nucleoside inhibitors of
reverse transcriptase ((NNRTI), which
includes Sustiva (efarivenz and Viramune
(nevirapine).
In 1996, the International AIDS
Conference show that HAART (highly
active antiretroviral therapy) which
combines three drugs is extremely
effective in reducing the amount of
viral activity in the blood and causes a
significant improvement of immunity in
patients . This would represent the
beginning of the end of the deaths from
HIV and AIDS.
The era of HIV as a
manageable chronic illness.
