CDC Recognizes AIDS Epidemic: The Dawn of a Health Crisis
Two research teams independently identified the virus that causes AIDS on May 20, 1983. Luc Montagnier's group at the Pasteur Institute in Paris isolated a retrovirus they called LAV from a patient with swollen lymph nodes. Simultaneously, Robert Gallo's laboratory at the National Cancer Institute was working with a virus they called HTLV-III. A bitter priority dispute erupted between the two teams, eventually settled by a diplomatic agreement in 1987 that credited both. The virus was renamed HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) in 1986. Montagnier and his colleague Francoise Barre-Sinoussi received the 2008 Nobel Prize; Gallo was controversially excluded. The identification of HIV enabled development of the blood test for screening (1985) and eventually antiretroviral therapies that transformed AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable chronic condition.
May 20, 1983
43 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on May 20
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