The earliest
reports of a new
disease were seen in the late seventies-early eighties, after observing rare opportunistic
diseases such as
Kaposi Sarcoma or
Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, usually occurring in immunodeprimed people, in a cluster of
intravenous drug users and
gay men in the
United States. The
syndrome was called
AIDS,
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. In
Africa,
AIDS was first seen in 1982 in
Uganda, and shortly after in other countries of the continent. In 1983, scientists from independent
research groups in the
United States (Gallo et al.) and in
France (Barre- Sinoussi et al.) discovered the
virus that causes
AIDS [1,2]. The
virus was at first named
HTLV-III/LAV (
human T-cell lymphotropic
virus-type III/
lymphadenopathy-associated virus) and later renamed to HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). The
HIV virus belongs to the
Retroviridae family. The
classification is done by
phylogenetic analysis and nucleotidic sequencing of the
viruses.