Embargoed to 1800 Wednesday October 26
An air steward notoriously blamed for starting the Aids epidemic in the US in the 1980s has been exonerated by scientists.
Gaetan Dugas, a French-Canadian gay man, was posthumously labelled "Patient Zero" by an unsympathetic media and accused of single-handedly being responsible for the spread of HIV and Aids across North America.
But new research shows he was simply one of many thousands of people infected by the virus in the years before HIV was recognised.
Before he died, Dugas assisted investigators with a significant amount of personal information as experts tried to establish whether Aids was caused by a sexually transmitted agent.
This, combined with confusion between a letter and a number, contributed to the invention of "Patient Zero" and the global defamation of Dugas, according to Cambridge University historian Dr Richard McKay.
His findings and those of a US experts who genetically tested decades-old blood samples to map the early spread of HIV in America are published in the journal Nature.
Dr McKay said: "Gaetan Dugas is one of the most demonised patients in history, and one of a long line of individuals and groups vilified in the belief that they somehow fuelled epidemics with malicious intent."
Reports emerged in early 1982 of historical sexual links between several gay men with Aids in Los Angeles, prompting investigators to interview the men and ask for the names of their sexual contacts.
More links were uncovered across southern California, but one connection came up repeatedly - that of Case 057, a widely travelled airline employee.
The US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) investigators employed the coding system to identify individual patients, numbering each person linked to a cluster of cases in sequence.
However, Case 057 was derived from a nickname - "Out(side) of California", abbreviated with the letter O.
"Some researchers discussing the investigation began interpreting the ambiguous oval as a digit, and referring to Patient O as Patient 0," said Dr McKay. "'Zero' is a capacious word. It can mean nothing. But it can also mean the absolute beginning."
As well as donating blood plasma for analysis, Case 057 - Dugas - was able to provide the names of 72 of the roughly 750 partners he had had a sexual relationship with in the previous three years.
"The fact that Dugas provided the most names, and had a more memorable name himself, likely contributed to his perceived centrality in this sexual network," Dr McKay added.
Genetic analysis of HIV taken from a 1983 blood sample from Dugas showed he was not even a "base" case for strains of the virus prevalent at the time.
A "trail of error and hype" led to him being branded with the "Patient Zero" title, Dr McKay maintained.
The genetic study led by scientists at the University of Arizona confirmed that HIV originally "jumped" from the Caribbean region to the US in around 1970, first emerging in New York City. From here, it quickly spread across the continent.
ends
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here