I've been wondering for ages whether this is (part of) why a lot of people in southern #Africa initially didn't believe "this is a new virus and you need to take this new medicine"?

It wasn't new!

If they'd been respectfully listened to, would western medics have realized they were wrong about it being "new" and had a much more productive conversation about it being a virus and needing new medicine?

#1920sHIV

How long did it take us to discover that #HIV first infected humans half a century before western scientists noticed it?

As in the current dominant #HIV1 strain first went from chimps to humans in about the #1920s

There's been multiple #spillover events from multiple species, so this has probably been happening for 1000s of years? (but older #spillovers didn't get far because it's not very contagious)

#1920sHIV

tweeted https://twitter.com/evolving_string/status/1635681501965864960