The hunt for the origin of HIV

The month of May is home both to World Aids Vaccine Day (also known as HIV Vaccine Awareness Day) and the anniversary of the discovery of the AIDS virus itself. But how much do we know about where the HIV virus actually came from, and how it spread to become the global killer it is today? We spoke with Dorothy H. Crawford, author of Virus Hunt: The search for the origin of HIV, about the HIV virus and its history.

Where did the HIV virus originate?

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How did the virus spread from wild chimpanzees?

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How did the HIV virus become global?

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Dorothy H. Crawford has been Assistant Principal for Public Understanding of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh since 2007. She is the author of Virus Hunt: The search for the origin of HIV, The Invisible Enemy, Deadly Companions, and Viruses: A Very Short Introduction. She was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2001, and awarded an OBE for services to medicine and higher education in 2005.

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