After more than 20 years of research, scientists are no closer to developing a vaccine against HIV, according to Professor David Baltimore, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The world was first alerted to the disease in June 1981 through a study of pneumonia cases amongst gay men, and in 1982 the name Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was given to the condition.
In 1984, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was identified by Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris and Robert Gallo of the US National Cancer Institute. In 1987 the first antiretroviral drug, AZT, was approved in the US, and in 1991 the first rapid HIV test was approved. By that time, 10 million people were HIV positive, and AIDS had become the biggest killer of men aged 25 to 44.
Sub-Saharan Africa houses around 12% of the world’s population, but as at 2005 the estimated number of HIV-infected people in that region was 25.8 million, around 64% of all HIV cases in the world. The estimated number of AIDS deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2005 was 2.4 million, around 76% of all AIDS deaths in the world.