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Study says AIDS virus carried to U.S. from Haiti

Infection Control Monitor, November 2, 2007

The AIDS virus was brought to the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, a date earlier than some experts had believed, according to a new study. The virus was most likely carried to the United States, where it spread into a deadly epidemic, by a single infected immigrant, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

The AIDS virus circulated in the United States for about 12 years before the disease was recognized by scientists in 1981, researchers said. "It is somehow chilling to know it was probably circulating for so long under our noses," Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist who co-authored the study, told Reuters news service.

HIV was brought to Haiti by an infected person from central Africa in about 1966, researchers said.

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