Explore the recorded discovery and history of Human immunodeficiency virus, with source links and stated limits.
HIV targets the white blood cells that coordinate immune defence, which makes other infections and some cancers more likely. WHO states there is no cure, but that with effective prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care HIV has become a manageable chronic condition. People on antiretroviral therapy with an undetectable viral load do not transmit HIV to their sexual partners.
CDC's MMWR of 5 June 1981 reported Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in five previously healthy young men in Los Angeles, two of whom had died. This is the first published report of what was later recognised as AIDS, not the first infection.
HIV.gov records that on 20 May 1983 Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and colleagues at the Pasteur Institute reported the discovery of a retrovirus that could be the cause of AIDS; she later shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for the discovery with Luc Montagnier.
On 23 April 1984 US officials announced that Robert Gallo and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute had found the cause of AIDS, a retrovirus they labelled HTLV-III, together with a diagnostic blood test.
On 1 May 1986 the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses announced that the virus causing AIDS would officially be known as human immunodeficiency virus.
The 1981 MMWR report described five patients already ill in Los Angeles; it is an index report in one investigation, not the first person ever infected. Naming and isolation milestones do not establish an origin.
Source check: 2026-09-19. Educational content; independent scientific review remains pending.