This is hardly news. The origin locale and timeframe (acquired zoonotically from Chimpanzees north of Kinshasa, probably around 1908, travelling by river to Kinshasa and Brazzaville, where social conditions permitted amplification and adaptation to human hosts) have been strongly supported by evidence for about a decade. David Quammen discusses it in detail in his book "Spillover". While this study adds more evidence supporting the theory, that area and timeframe was pretty much accepted as fact in the research community for some time.

It's news for those of us not in the AIDS research community.

That book is very widely spread outside of the AIDS research community, and is only peripherally about AIDS/HIV. Even lay-people are reading it in droves. Definitely a good read if you have the time.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

I'd recommend The Origins of Aids - it's a great book (wrote for the laymen) that explores this very topic.

Fascinating read - published a few years ago.

Radiolab did a pretty interesting episode [1] regarding investigation in to Patient Zero. They talk about Typhoid Mary and Aids. I highly recommend it. [1]-http://www.radiolab.org/story/169879-patient-zero/

A Kinshasa origin around 1900 was already suggested in 2008:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9525342...

it's real strange to me that the BBC says "Aids" and not "AIDS" when it's an acronym. Still interesting.

edit: especially when they say HIV and not Hiv

The Brits seem to do it for acronyms you pronounce, i.e. Fifa or Aids, but not the ones you spell out like HIV.

> acronyms you pronounce

> the ones you spell out

If you're looking to distinguish these, you can use the term "initialism" for the latter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Nomenclature

Ah! Thanks, I knew there was a word for it.

> roaring sex trade

Possible allusion to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties

Roaring Twenties comes from standard use of the word roaring in British English http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/roaring