Forty years of AIDS: a retrospective and the way forward

Identification of the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) took over three years, when French and US investigators identified and cultivated a human retrovirus, labeled "human immunodeficiency virus", from infected T cells isolated from patients with AIDS. Diagnostic tests took another year to be developed and distributed, allowing the blood supply to be screened and enabling identification of those infected, whether asymptomatic or experiencing opportunistic infections. Once these tests were available, it was clear that this infection had become a pandemic that was spreading faster than previously thought, with over one million estimated infections worldwide by 1986. Here, Quinn discusses the therapeutic advances and prevention strategies of AIDS.