Enlarge / Scanning electron micrograph of HIV. Virions are the green spheres on the surface of blood cells. (credit: Getty | BSIP)

The study, published today in Nature, uses reconstructed genetic sequences to show that the virus landed on the continent around 1971, a full decade before it was discovered in 1981 and identified as a retrovirus in 1983. And the man vilified for having delivered it to the United States, a French Canadian airline steward named Gaëtan Dugas, aka Patient Zero, had nothing to do with its arrival, the study authors report. In fact, Dugas’ moniker “Patient Zero” was actually a misinterpretation of the identifier “Patient O” used in a dataset for an AIDS cluster study centered in California. Patient O was meant to signify that he was a patient from Outside California.

Gaëtan Dugas (credit: Gobonobo)

In that early 1980s cluster study, researchers tracked down Dugas after several HIV/AIDS patients reporting have sex with him. The detective work allowed the researchers to link sexual activity with the virus’ spread. However, the study was published with the now infamous number rather than the letter, locking the misnomer into the scientific literature and history books.