Zaire clues

A team of international scientists including Jonathan Mann and Peter Piot, future heads of the World Health Organization Special Programme on AIDS and UNAIDS respectively, travel to Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) to investigate possible cases of AIDS. Here they note that AIDS is probably spread sexually because women are also affected – not just the gay community. The news is met with scepticism by USA health officials until the discovery of HIV in 1983/1984.