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How did HIV reach the United States of America? This is the biggest medical mystery of the time. The samples of patients who were affected in the beginning reveal that scientists had figured out this disease and the areas where it reached first. For this very reason, a man has been exonerated who is accused of triggering this disease in North America.

In Arizona University a group of researchers sequenced HIV virus taken from a flight attendant. He is from Canada and he is named as patient Zero, the bestselling book 'And the Band Played On describes'. This book was chronicled in the early days of AIDS in America.

The virus from eight other men was also sequenced who were affected with HIV during the 1970's. Scientists were able to make an estimate from these genetic codes and they concluded that HIV came to America from Haiti in 1970 and 1971, but the doctors could not detect it for years.

This disease was under the radar for at least a decade in New York City. The number of infections started doubling every year. It is believed that one person took the virus across the country to San Francisco in the year 1976.

In 1981 researchers received a clue that early AIDS patients were lovers. This was the first indication which made the scientists think that this disease is transmitted sexually from one person to other.

Now the researchers started interviewing these lovers about their sex lives. These lovers revealed that they loved each other because of one reason or another.

It was in 1984 that the researchers officially declared that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease and they used codes for the people they interviewed.

By the time the flight attendant caught HIV lots of people were affected in the US may be thousands. It can be concluded that the patient named Dugas a flight attendant who was from Canada might not have been Patient Zero.  The first person who was diagnosed with HIV positive.