The Development of Human Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV) in Africa over the past 20 years is outlined by the following four maps. Over the past 20 years, the spread of HIV in Africa has been prolific. Sub-Sahara Africa is the area most devastated by HIV in the world. Many countries are overwhelmed by the disease. HIV is not simply a medical disease. HIV affects African countries in all aspects of life. Social relationships, the economy, family structures, the health-care industry, all are influenced by the spread of HIV. The origin of HIV in Africa is still unknown. However, there are two major theories about how HIV developed into a virus that affects humans. One theory is that HIV initially crossed from chimpanzees to humans in the late 1940's in the Congo. The exact mechanism of of this transfer is unknown, however, the eating of contaminated chimpanzees is one possible explanation. Once human beings were infected, the virus quickly spread among war zones and the countryside through traveling soldiers. The first major sectors of Africa that were affected by the HIV virus were along popular truck routes and major transportation lines. Transient truck drivers who engaged in sexual activities with prostitutes on the road were the first victims of HIV/AIDS. * The second major theory of HIV's origin is that Western physicians unknowing infected Africans through contaminated oral polio vaccines which were distributed in the 1950's. Polio vaccines are cultivated in monkey kidney tissues and the most closely related primate disease to HIV is carried in African primates. *

In 1982, only three countries, Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania had a rate of HIV infection over 1% of the total population.	The major transportation routes cut across Sub-Saharan Africa through Tanzania, Uganda, Lake Victoria, the Congo, and onto the Ivory Coast. As shown by these maps, in the early stages of the HIV spread, the highest prevalence rates of HIV were in these countries.	In only five years, by 1987, that number had increased dramatically to include twenty countries.
By 1992, all of Sub-Saharan Africa faced the epidemic of HIV. The rates of infection were rising throughout the region.	Infected truck drivers, soldiers, and prostitutes spread the disease to their own families and communities. Affluent businessmen who could afford sexual gratification from multiple partners also brought HIV to urban communities. Within a matter of years, HIV and AIDS had spread to all of Sub-Saharan Africa, affecting all populations, rich, poor, urban, and rural.     Maps from: www.aids.africa.com	By 1997, even with widespread dissemination of information about HIV, a pocket of countries, Nambia, Bottswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia were devastated with a staggering HIV rate of between 16 and 32% of the total population.