Question

How old is HIV?

3 November 2011. Related: All topics.

Approximately how old is HIV?

Answer

Answer: Angelina Namiba

Thank you for your question.

SIV transferred to humans and became HIV in the early 20th century – about 100 years ago. SIV is a similar virus that is likely to have infected non-human primates for thousands of years.

The earliest first cases in humans have been traced back to samples stored from patients who died in the 1950s and 1960s.

Although many people became infected during the 1970s the first reported cases of new symptoms that were later shown to be related to HIV was in 1981.

The virus itself was identified in 1983 and shown to be directly related to the syndrome called AIDS.