HIV First Spread By Doctors In Africa

A theory that doctors are to blame for the original spread of HIV in Africa has been put to the test.

Rather than unprotected sex, Dr. Pepin from a university in Canada, thinks that doctors giving vaccines for other illnesses caused the original spread of HIV.

He went to Africa and looked at disease progression in the Congo.

By interviewing over 900 people and looking at other blood borne viruses, Hepatitis C and human T cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV), they found “if a person had been treated for the sleeping disease before 1951, the chances that he or she had been infected with hepatitis C tripled. And HTLV-1 showed a similar pattern. ”

This means that someone vaccinated for the “sleeping disease” probably had this done by dirty needles used in multiple other patients. This makes it more likely they had other blood borne diseases and this would include HIV.

• According to Pepin, that would also explain why the number of people 65 years and older who’d been treated for sleeping sickness was six times lower than would be expected from historical data: the missing seniors could have died of AIDS, the immune system breakdown caused by HIV.

Pepin also went to Cameroon and found similar results.

The trouble is that there is actually no proof that HIV was transmitted this way. Doctors think Pepin has done some great studies on Hepatitis C and HTLV, but don’t think he should claim HIV followed the same pattern.

Either way, Pepin is happy. He thinks both unprotected sex and dirty needles are important things to consider when thinking about HIV transmission, whether or not his studies are correct.

These days, unprotected sex is the main way HIV is transmitted but needles are even more dangerous (veins are a direct route into the blood stream) when sharing them with someone with HIV.

Unfortunately, many people don’t know they are infected. In a recent study up to 44% of gay men in American cities had no idea.

So, regardless of where HIV came from in the first place, what people need to do today to protect themselves is wear condoms and use clean needles for injections — regardless of what their partner tells them because they just might not know themselves.

Contact the author here: mack@morningquickie.com