Patient Zero (HIV)

Patient zero can be anyone, it can be your co-worker, your neighbor, or even someone you have never even met and is across the world. This person is the first one that has been contaminated with the new disease that is about to spread throughout the population. Patient zero makes contact with other people causing them to get the disease then they go around doing the same cycle as the person that gave the disease, which in this case it is Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The patient zero for AIDS was Gaetan Dugas. He was from canada that worked for Air Canada as a flight attendant. He is described as a blond handsome charming sexual man. He used his job to travel around the world to sleep with numerous of men. He claimed to have over 2,500 sex partners across North America. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta started tracing sexual contacts that soon lead to Gaetan Dugas. He was linked to 40 cases out of the first 248 cases in United States, 22 cases in New York, 19 cases in Los Angeles, and 9 more in other cities. CDC also concluded that he brought AIDS from africa and introduced it to gay bathhouses, which that is where it hit the first large group of victims, the gay community. Later on Gaetan Dugas died because of kidney failure on March 30, 1984 in Quebec City. It was important for the CDC to find patient zero because when they found him they were able to find where it came from and it help to prevent spread. It allowed them to be able to track the spread of disease and do a warning of it.