Wednesday, July 19, 2006
question of the day
Do you know that the first reported cases of HIV are from chimpanzees? I mean HIV was first observed in chimpanzee in the 1930s. My question of the day is, how did it get to human if the it can only be transmitted through sexual intercourse and blood sharing?
By the time I finished forming that question I've got a pretty good answer. I suppose someone was a sicko and actually did it with a chimpanzee. That's the most obvious answer I can think of. However, researchers in the 1930s didn't agree with me.
1930s
• Researchers believe that sometime in the 1930s a form of simian
immunodeficiency virus (SIV) jumped to humans who butchered or ate chimpanzee
bush meat in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The virus becomes HIV-1 the most
widespread form found today.
Is it just me or did you come to the same conclusion I did?
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