HIV Patient Zero

About HIV Patient Zero

The concept of Patient Zero in the HIV epidemic originated from a misunderstanding. The CDC identified a French Canadian flight attendant, Gaetan Dugas, as Patient O Patient Outside California in a cluster study of early AIDS cases. The letter O was misread as zero, creating the myth that Dugas was the source of HIV in North America. Randy Shilts book And the Band Played On popularized the Patient Zero narrative. Genetic analysis in 2016 proved that Dugas was not the source. HIV had been circulating in the United States since at least 1970, a decade before Dugas was diagnosed. The virus entered the Americas through Haiti from Central Africa. Stored blood samples from the 1970s contained HIV, predating recognition of AIDS in 1981. The Patient Zero myth stigmatized Dugas and the gay community. The concept of a single Patient Zero is generally misleading, as zoonotic diseases typically have multiple cross species transmission events.