A new study has found that the HIV pandemic with us today is likely to have begun its global spread from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
An international team, led by scientists from Oxford University, UK, and University of Leuven, Belgium, has pieced together the genetic history of the HIV-1 group M pandemic, the event that saw HIV spread across the African continent and around the world.
The findings suggest that, between the 1920s and 1950s, factors such as urban growth, railway links during Belgian colonial rule, and changes to the sex trade combined to form this 'perfect storm.'
[Source: Newsy Science]