title: The earliest cases of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 group M in Congo-Kinshasa, Rwanda and Burundi and the origin of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
abstract: The early cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection in the 1960s and 1970s in Congo-Kinshasa (Zaire), Rwanda and Burundi are reviewed. These countries appear to be the source of the HIV-1 group M epidemic, which then spread outwards to neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda in the east, and Congo-Brazzaville in the west. Further spread to Haiti and onwards to the USA can be explained by the hundreds of single men from Haiti who participated in the UNESCO educational programme in the Congo between 1960 and 1975.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vangroenweghe
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002063:Burundi / Q000453:epidemiology; D015023:Democratic Republic of the Congo / Q000453:epidemiology; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D012432:Rwanda / Q000453:epidemiology