The Origins of AIDS

An updated edition of Jacques Pépin's acclaimed account of the events that transformed a chimpanzee virus into a global pandemic.

Jacques Pépin (Author)

9781108720397, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 January 2021

392 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.65 kg

'This book takes on a journalistic quality, supported by solid evidence including maps, illustrations, graphs, etc. Such a precise analysis is more necessary than ever as the search for the origin of the recent COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated. Abundance and accuracy of information, careful analysis, and clear and fluid presentation together with a deep knowledge of the topic are more welcome than ever - not only for the understanding of AIDS, but also for the reaffirmation of the value of science in a time when its benefits to society are so widely contested.' Alain Touwaide, Doody's Reviews

It is now forty years since the discovery of AIDS, but its origins continue to puzzle doctors, scientists and patients. Inspired by his own experiences working as a physician in a bush hospital in Zaire, Jacques Pépin looks back to the early twentieth-century events in central Africa that triggered the emergence of HIV/AIDS and traces its subsequent development into the most dramatic and destructive epidemic of modern times. He shows how the disease was first transmitted from chimpanzees to man and then how military campaigns, urbanisation, prostitution and large-scale colonial medical interventions intended to eradicate tropical diseases combined to disastrous effect to fuel the spread of the virus from its origins in Léopoldville to the rest of Africa, the Caribbean and ultimately worldwide. This is an essential perspective on HIV/AIDS and on the lessons that must be learned as the world faces another pandemic.

Introduction
1. Out of Africa
2. The Source
3. The Timing
4. The Cut Hunter
5. The Scramble for Central Africa
6. Tropical Boom Towns
7. The Oldest Profession
8. Injections and the Transmission of Viruses
9. The Legacies of French Colonial Medicine
10. The Legacies of Belgian Tropical Medicine
11. The Other Human Immunodeficiency Viruses
12. From the Congo to the Caribbean
13. The Blood Trade
14. A Long Journey
15. Globalisation
16. A False Villain, a Genuine Hero
17. Epilogue

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], HIV / AIDS [MJCJ2], History of medicine [MBX], Epidemiology & medical statistics [MBNS], African history [HBJH], General & world history [HBG]