Researchers Have New Theory on Origin of AIDS Virus

How HIV first infected humans is still a puzzle waiting to be solved. Past research has traced the virus to chimps in Africa. Now scientists have gone a step further – they have found that chimps got the virus from two kinds of monkeys that they ate, each with its own virus. The HIV virus may have been a combination of these two viruses. It is still unknown when and how the viruses merged, mutated and transmitted to humans, but this discovery is considered important because "it shows that chimpanzees acquired their virus exactly the same way humans did, by hunting bushmeat," says one of the researchers. – YaleGlobal