A Stone for Gaetan Dugas

The fantastic journey of AIDS Virus from the banks of the river Congo to the Hudson’s ?

“Who bought the international flight ticket for this African native ?“

The unfortunate case of Gaetan Dugas.

It was the heady 1980s.

Small pox has just been eradicated from the face of the earth. We thought we have conquered all the infectious diseases that afflicted mankind. Barring a handful of cancers and a few rare diseases, mankind could boast of its complete conquest over diseases.

Then Gaetan Dugas appeared in one hospital of University of California that shattered this hubris of mankind. A Canadian flight attendant who harboured all the rare diseases so far unconquered by the modern medicine together in one single human body. He had a rare form of pneumonia (PAP) mostly seen in terminal cases. He had a rare cancer of the skin (KS), and a fungal infection that was not easily treatable in the 1980s. How can be God so unkind to one single young and handsome human being in his thirties ?

Then it was found out that he was a Homosexual.

“That’s it. It was God’s own way of punishing the promiscuous among his pure creation.” Said the Church.

Soon more cases surfaced among the gay community of California. It was given a fitting name-

GRID: Gay Related Immune Deficiency.

Rightly the Reagan regime did not want to spend a single federal Dollar on such promiscuous gay community.

The Concept of Patient Zero started with Gaetan Dugas

Soon GRID turned into an epidemic, unstoppable. Doctors have no other facility except to chart new cases on a paper. Today, we know it by the familiar name- AIDS. Dugas was the first Patient Zero in that chart. By the time Gaetan Dugas died a painful death from AIDS related Kidney failure in march 1984,  he had been nick-named as the Columbus of AIDS in America and had been painted as the most notorious character in Randy Shilt’s  popular novel “And the band played on” and was even nominated into the list of 25 most intriguing person on the Peoples.com.

For 30 years After death, Gaetan Dugas was condemned as the Patient Zero and the person who brought AIDS to America. Today we know that AIDS had  entered US long before the Infamous Gaetan Dugas, most likely in the 1960s from Africa via Haiti. But why Blame Gaetan Dugas a victim ? Probably he is the one who shattered the myth of un- conqurability of modern medical science and the pride and hubris along with it.

This article is intended to set the stone straight on the cemetery of Gaetan Dugas the falsely accused Patient Zero of AIDS in America.

AIDS was present in Central and West Africa for 2000 years.

With modern molecular tools, we are now sure that AIDS virus was circulating among the Bantus and the Pygmies of Cameron at least in 1920s. But in the life time of Dugas it was detected only among the Homosexual community. Next it was found to affect the Heroin addicts and then the Haiti– a place notorious for sex tourism among rich Americans. The 3 Hs established Dugas as the devil incarnate till the 4th H was added to the GRID spectrum– Haemophilia. When a Paediatrician in California detected the virus in a one year old haemophilia child, the medical fraternity had to reconsider the sexual transmission theory. Today we know that AIDS Virus travels 10 time faster by injection needle than anal sex. But we did not have the technology or intellectual tool to dissect the layers of evil surrounding a mutilated AIDS victim- a mutilating, wasting terminal medical condition noted only in the gay community. Then it moved into heroin addicts. In this condition young sexually hyperactive drug addict young men will suddenly lose weight, waste away, then develop pneumonia, cancer and finally die of kidney failure. There was no sympathy for both the communities. No research, no treatment either. The third community was noted to be Haitian. Haiti was again notorious as the destination for the rich Americans for their secret sexual escapades.

30 years after Dugas succumbed to the dreadful condition, A serum sample which has been sitting in the pathology department of University of Kinshasa for years tested positive for AIDS. The sample has been collected from a Bantu man from the Colonial Congo in the year 1959. More and more samples from the sixties and seventies Congo tested positive for AIDS. Using the molecular clock today we know that AIDS was rampant in Cameroon, Gibbon and Congo as early as 1930s and 40s.

The probable route of HIV virus from Cameron to California.

Immune Deficiency Virus was present in African chimpanzees and monkeys from the beginning. It infected the tribal hunters who ventured into the deep forests for bushmeat. It was limited to only the tribes who lived on trees and eat Chimps and monkeys for thousand years.

Then the Belgians changed this viral traffic code.

The city of Leopoldville  came up at the mouth of river Congo. Their greed for Timber and minerals brought steam ship that travelled high up into the source of the River Congo in search of minerals. Next came the construction of train line deep into the tropical rain forests of equatorial Africa. The Colonial rulers conscripted thousands of tribal labours who may have been harbouring this deadly virus silently.

Two modern medical interventions inadvertently helped the virus travel to Haiti.

• Careless and rampant use of Penicillin injection and Quinine injections among the workers in the construction camps distributed the virus among all including some europeans as well.

• In 1960s, WHO deputed a large number of Haitian health workers to work in the UN medical camps of Leopoldville. Along with them the virus reached the Caribbean shores.

How did it reach the US mainland ?

Hemo-Carribean, a plasma centre in Port-Au-Spain which in the 70s used to sell 5000 to 6000 litres of plasma to US for manufacturing drugs for Hemophilia patients. Naturally, it had to collect blood from poor Haitians in exchange of blood money. That is how the haemophiliacs  of California in the west coast got infected by this African Virus.

Conclusion

The Chimp SIV (A virus similar to AIDS virus of humans) was a native of equatorial Africa for 2000 years. The Bantu and Pygmies who used to kill Chimps for meat were suffering from this virus for 2000 years. Their system had acclimatised to the virus. But Colonial intervention changed this rule of Viral traffic. When the virus set its foot on the US shores, there was simply no stopping. In the 1960-70s the Homosexual, Heroin addict promiscuous Americans were sitting Ducks for this virus. With a  stigma like GRID, the disease reached epidemic proportion before we could know something was wrong. It was only paediatricians who detected AIDS among haemophiliac kids and infants the  tag Gay was removed.

We didn’t have the technology, science and attitude when people like Gaetan Dugas fell victims to this virus. Unfortunately one of the best selling book on AIDS and a box office hit movie ( pic above) was sold victimising Gaetan Dugas.

After all nothing sells like a scandal. So we search for scandals where there may not be any. But at what a cost !

In the October 2016, the stone in the graves of Gaetan Dugas changed from the victimiser to one who is victimised by our selfish gain. It took 30 long years.

So my question is:

• When the AIDS virus reached the colonial Leopoldville on the bank of the river Congo from the remotest Equatorial rain forest of Cameron, who bought the international flight ticket to Manhattan for it ?

• Without a flight ticket, can a virus which can at best hop only 6 feet ( SARS COV-2) reach Italy from Guangdong ?

To be continued…

• Why bats ?

• What is so special about this flying Mammal ?