Experts say air steward blamed for spread of Aids ‘not responsible for US epidemic’

AN air steward blamed for starting the Aids epidemic in the US in the 1980s has been exonerated by scientists.

Gaetan Dugas, a French-Canadian gay man, was posthumously labelled “Patient Zero” and accused of being responsible for the spread of HIV and Aids across North America.

But new research shows he was simply one of many thousands of people infected by the virus in the years before HIV was recognised.

Before he died, Dugas assisted investigators with a significant amount of personal information.

This, combined with confu- sion between a letter and a number, contributed to the invention of “Patient Zero” and the global defamation of Dugas, according to historian Dr Richard McKay.

His findings and those of a US expert who genetically tested decades-old blood samples to map the early spread of HIV in America are published in the journal Nature.

Genetic analysis of HIV taken from a 1983 blood sample from Dugas showed he was not even a “base” case for strains of the virus prevalentatthetime.

A “trail of error and hype” led to him being branded with the “Patient Zero” title, Dr McKay maintained.

The study led by scientists at the University of Arizona confirmed HIV “jumped” from the Caribbean to the US in around 1970.