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A quarter of a century since the virus that causes AIDS was identified, a vaccine against the deadly disease remains frustratingly out of reach despite a well-funded global effort to find a cure (see, From 'gay plague' to global tragedy, Cosmos Online).
"Nearly a billion dollars is spent globally on HIV/AIDS research annually, and yet the sobering reality is that at present there are no promising candidates for an HIV vaccine," Bruce Walker of Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, U.S., wrote in a recent edition of the U.S. journal Science.
Here we bring you a timeline of the major landmarks in the 25-year battle against AIDS.
1920s or 1930s
• Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which destroys immune cells in apes, leaps the species barrier to humans, possibly after a bushmeat hunter in Western-Central Africa is bitten by an infected animal or handles infected meat.
1981
• Eight young homosexuals in New York are diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma, a skin cancer that usually occurs in older people, while five Los Angeles gays fall sick with a rare form of pneumonia. These clusters alert the U.S. authorities to something new: a disease that wrecks the immune system and exposes the body to opportunistic disease.
1982
• AIDS gets its name – acquired immune deficiency syndrome. A 20-month-old child dies from AIDS-related infection after a blood transfusion, providing first clear signs that AIDS can be transmitted by other than homosexual contact.
1983
• France's Pasteur Institute, led by Luc Montagnier, isolates a virus that penetrates white blood cells, causing AIDS. They call the agent lymphadenopathy-associated virus, or LAV (see, The hunt for HIV, Cosmos Online).
• The first signs, derived from African men in Europe, emerge that heterosexuals can become infected, unleashing widespread anxiety.
1984
• U.S. scientist Robert Gallo announces he has isolated the virus that causes AIDS, calling it HTLV-III, but it becomes clear that the agent is the same as LAV, identified a year earlier in France.
1986
• The agent that causes AIDS becomes officially known as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
1987
• First anti-HIV drug, azidovudine (AZT) is approved after trials showed it slowed, but did not halt, the progress of the virus.
• President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia announces his son has died of AIDS, a landmark in the campaign against stigma in Africa.
• U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who had been accused of neglecting AIDS, delivers speech that describes the disease as "public enemy No.1."
1990
• Death of Ryan White, a young American HIV-infected haemophiliac whose barring from school because of HIV infection unleashed a campaign against AIDS prejudice.
1991
• Death of Freddy Mercury, lead singer of the rock group Queen. US basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson announces he has HIV.
1995
• Two new classes of anti-HIV drugs, also targeting replication, are approved: protease inhibitors and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Used in combination, they can reduce the viral load to below detectable levels, an achievement that triggers optimism that a cure has been found.
1996
• United Nations sets up the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS).
• Epidemic starts to worsen in eastern Europe and former Soviet Union, India, China.
1997
• Number of AIDS deaths drops in the United States for first time since 1981.
1998
• Hopes that the antiretroviral "cocktail" is a cure are dashed. Evidence emerges of HIV "reservoirs" where the virus holes up and rebounds if the drugs are stopped.
2000
• Southern Africa becomes the epicentre of what is now a global pandemic.
• In Botswana, up to one in four adults and 40 percent of pregnant women have HIV.
• South African President Thabo Mbeki is attacked around the world for questioning that AIDS is caused by HIV.
• Drugs companies start to cut prices for poor countries.
• U.N. restates call for spread of HIV/AIDS to be halted and thrown into reverse by 2015 as part of Millennium Development Goals.
2001
• Indian drugs company Cipla vows to make cheap generics of AIDS medications, heaping pressure on multinationals to cut prices further.
• U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan calls for an AIDS "war chest" of between seven to 10 billion dollars per year, compared to the one billion currently being spent.
• AIDS becomes leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa.
2002
• The Global Fund for Fighting AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria starts to make its first allocations.
2003
• U.S. President George Bush unveils plans to spend 15 billion dollars over five years to combat AIDS in Africa and Caribbean. First HIV vaccine to undergo a full trial proves to be a flop.
• New WHO Director General Lee Jong-Wook names AIDS as his top priority, calls for three million poor people to get access to antiretrovirals by end of 2005.
• In a landmark gesture, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao becomes first premier of his country to publicly shake the hands of an AIDS patient.
• Cost of antiretrovirals plummets, helped by World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal allowing poor, vulnerable countries to import generics.
2005
• WHO's "Three by Five" initiative falls far short of goal, reaching only 1.3 million out of a hoped-for three million. But it is also praised for mobilising political commitment and funds and building medical infrastructure.
2008
• An estimated 33 million people now living with HIV or AIDS, according to end-2007 estimate by UNAIDS. AIDS deaths in 2007 totalled two million, including 290,000 children, and there were 2.4 million new infections (see, AIDS pandemic marks quarter century, Cosmos Online).
