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Identified in late 1980 and early 1981, the virus was first noticed  by doctors among homosexual men in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. It first emerged in form of rare illnesses classified as opportunistic diseases, which included a chest infection known as Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia (PCP), and a rare skin cancer known as Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS), among other equally rare conditions. Tests revealed that the patients’ immune systems were greatly weakened.

Original explanations of this condition were

·         Use of recreational drugs was leading to damage of the immune system.

·         An infectious organism was damaging the immune system.

The second explanation was adopted for some reasons;

·         Doctors were increasingly finding that the sexual contacts or partners of infected men were also falling sick

·         Those with multiple sexual partners were more likely to fall ill.

·         The disease was emerging among gay populations in other countries where pattern of drug use was different.

Because all initial cases were among homosexual men, the new disease was first the name GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency). Later, researchers started seeing the same illness among other non-gay population groups, including haemophiliacs, heterosexuals mainly from Haiti and intravenous drug users.

By 1982, researchers were convinced this was not just a gay disease, and in the same year, it got its present name, AIDS, for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. They were also almost fully convinced that a virus caused AIDS. They realised that the patients they were seeing represented a small tip of the iceberg, due to its sexually transmittable nature.

It is controversially accepted that Africa is the origin of HIV, though opponents of the theory claim that it is part of the stigmatisation of both the continent and its people.

Facts supporting this theory include:

·         Africa has an extremely rich and diverse Flora and Fauna. Many new disease causing viruses, which have emerged in recent times, such as Ebola, Marburg and West Nile virus have come from Africa.

·         The closest relative of HIV is Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), which infects certain species of African monkeys.

·         The earliest cases of HIV infection are all from Africa, based on medical records and confirmation through laboratory tests of stored blood specimens.

·         Africa has been the hardest hit by the infection.

However, in his famous book “The River”, Edward Hooper says HIV is likely to have been introduced through Oral Polio Vaccines in the 1950’s in the then Belgian Congo. The vaccines were contaminated with HIV through inadvertent use of monkey kidney tissue to culture the weakened Poliovirus used for vaccination. If this theory is true, then, the HIV is of African origin, but was introduced by the West, while trying to control a far less dangerous disease, Polio.

In the early and mid - 1980's, HIV/AIDS was largely unknown in Kenya. It was a disease that affected "others". Initially it was viewed as a disease of homosexuals, and American homosexuals at that! Then it became a disease of Ugandans, when stories of slim (the name given to AIDS in Uganda supposedly because of weight loss among its sufferers) began to hit the local press.

It was not until September 1984, that the medical community was to officially learn of the first reported case of AIDS in Kenya, through an article published in the East African Medical Journal. The gravity of the issue was in contrast with the simple title:- "Acquired Immuno-defficiency Syndrome in an African." The "African was a 343-year-old Ugandan journalist operating from Nairobi.

The article ended pophetically - "This case is reported to alert medical practitioners to the possibility of AIDS occuring in Africans and to emphasise the point that no race may be exempted from this highly lethal syndrome". AIDS had arrived in Kenya and from there, spread like a bush fire!

-Based on the book “HIV and AIDS: Facts that could change your LIFE”, by Dr. William Muraah and Dr. William Kiarie.