AIDS in the United States

AIDS in the United States

Until the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, a rare, benign skin disease called Kaposi’s Sarcoma was almost exclusively diagnosed in older, dark-skinned men from Europe and Africa. Between 1979 and 1981, “Kaposi’s sarcoma had been diagnosed in twenty-six men, twenty in New York and six in California. Eight had died, all in less than two years. Only one was nonwhite. None was more than fifty-one years old; the mean age was thirty-nine. All were homosexual.” (Grmek, 6-7) The emergence of Kaposi’s sarcoma in the United States and its behavior aroused concern in the medical community. Atypical victims of an ordinarily non-lethal disease were dying in New York and San Francisco. Pneumocystis carinii, an unusual form of pneumonia, was also being diagnosed at the time in other patients.

It soon became clear that the unidentified disease (AIDS) targeted the human immune system. However, the virus that eventually caused AIDS was yet to be isolated and identified. In 1983, through the combined efforts of the United States and France (laboratory of Robert Gallo at the National Institutes of Health and Professor Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute, respectively), the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) isolation was achieved and the two nations shared the commendation. Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute was recognized for the first isolation of the HIV virus and Robert Gallo of the National Institutes for Health was accredited with the ability to reproduce the virus and acknowledged for the invention of the diagnostic tests. (Schoub 9-10)

The precise origin of the virus with regard to place and time is unknown. However, information about the origins of HIV is not pertinent to the control or repression of the disease. Regardless of whether HIV originated in Africa the 19th century or in the United States in the 1950’s, the modern suppression of the epidemic would proceed similarly.

An anti-viral agent is designed to hinder a phase of the virus’ multiplication. Unfortunately, it is difficult to create an anti-viral agent for HIV “because of the overlap of the biochemical processes of viruses and those of cells, and it would thus be virtually impossible to design chemical agents that would be sufficiently selective to be therapeutically useful.” (Schoub, 159) Essentially, it is arduous to inhibit the natural processes of the virus without inhibiting the similar processes of the human cell.

There are several different strains of HIV in existence and new strains are constantly mutating.