New evidence shows that HIV cases first appeared in human beings in Cameroonin the last quarter of the 19th century. A new book on the spread of HIV alleges that the virus spread to humans from a simian, Walakira Nyanzi reports.

The book alleges that HIV/AIDS started when a hunter caught an infected chimpanzee for food and the virus entered from the chimpanzee’s blood into the hunter’s body. The name of the hunter is not revealed in the book.

The book further alleges that HIV spread during the time when European countries were partitioningAfrica. The book alleges that HIV/AIDS reached USA and Europe through intermarriages between African slaves and the whites.  The book also notes that other deadly diseases like sleeping sickness, smallpox and syphilis were brought toAfricaby the Europeans.

HIV likely festered in Kinshasa for decades prior to entering into global circulation in the 1970s, the authors say. It alleges that between 1960 and 1970s between 1000 and 2000 residents in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo had become infected with HIV/AIDS. The book notes that many HIV/Aids victims mingled with United Nations workers from Haiti who had come to Kinshasha to work as physicians and civil servants.

HIV/AIDS has killed millions of people across the world. The book was authored by a Washington Post journalist and an Aids researcher atHarvardUniversity; Craig Timberg and Harvard epidemiologist Daniel Halperin. It says that HIV/AIDS broke inCameroonabout 100 years ago. Since HIV/AIDS broke out, the book notes that it has killed millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lake Victoria (Uganda), Zambia, Botswana and South Africa.