The man blamed for spreading HIV across North America in the 1980s, referred to as “Patient Zero”, may not actually have been the initial source of the deadly virus on the continent, a new study suggests. A combination of historical and genetic research shows that flight attendant Gaetan Dugas, a French-Canadian homosexual, who became the human epicentre of the US AIDS crisis of the 1980s was simply one of many thousands infected in the years before HIV was recognised. Before death, Dugas provided investigators a significant amount of personal information to assist with studies into whether AIDS was caused by sexually transmitted agent. McKay’s research suggests that this, combined with confusion between a letter and a number, contributed to the invention of Patient Zero and the global defamation of Dugas. While his research traces this impulse to blame back several centuries, McKay located the immediate roots of the term “Patient Zero” in an early ‘cluster study’ of US AIDS patients.

Source: Hindustan Times October 27, 2016 10:38 UTC