The Origins of AIDS

In the 30 years since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began, questions remain about its origins. Pepin (microbiology & infectious diseases, Univ. de Sherbrooke, Quebec) combines history and epidemiology to build a detailed argument demonstrating how a virus that originated in chimpanzees could jump to humans and eventually become a global epidemic. He examines the social disruption of the colonial and postcolonial eras and identifies urbanization, the migration of young men to cities, and the resulting increase in prostitution as additional catalysts of the disease's spread. He then devotes several chapters to a number of public health programs in Africa that, while intended to combat various diseases, involved injecting large numbers of people with needles and syringes that were not properly sterilized. The last few chapters trace the spread of HIV/AIDS from Africa to Haiti, the United States, and beyond, with special emphasis on the role of the blood and plasma trade.