Syndrome is used for the first time. The name was designated by the CDC. That year there were 1600 people diagnosed with the disease and almost seven hundred deaths. The CDC task force on KSOI had traced forty patients suffering from KSOI to a single person, called Patient Zero. Because of this, they realized that the disease was sexually transmitted. The disease also showed up in IV drug users and hemophiliacs. The first case of heterosexual transmission was diagnosed in 1983. “The doctors thought 'AIDS' suitable because people acquired the condition rather than inherited it, because it resulted in a deficiency within the immune system, and because it was a syndrome, with a number of manifestations, rather than a single disease.”

In 1982, the term Acquired Immune Deficiency

Although AIDS had a name, no one knew what the causes and tests for AIDS were. The race was on to discover what caused AIDS. In 1983, French scientists at the Institute Pasteur found a new virus that they called lymphadenopathy-associated virus or LAV. About a year later, Dr. Robert Gallo, of the National Cancer institute discovered HLTV-III. The first discovery was made in France at the Institute Pasteur, but shared credit is given to Dr. Robert Gallo, the discoverer of AIDS and his French counterparts for discovering HIV on April 23, 1984. In 1985, doctors came up with a test to identify who had AIDS and which donated blood had the AIDS virus. At this time, scientists knew that not only homosexuals got it, but also anyone exposed to the virus from blood or body fluids could get it too, including newborn babies and children.

Courtesy of Reuters

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