Conclusion

It is likely that we will never know how, when and where AIDS actually originated. Scientists investigating the possibilities often become very attached to their individual 'pet' theories and insist that theirs is the only true answer, but the spread of AIDS could quite conceivably have been induced by a combination of many different events. Whether through injections, travel, wars, colonial practices or genetic engineering, the realities of the 20th Century have undoubtedly had a major role to play. So perhaps what we should be focussing on now is not how the AIDS epidemic originated, but how we can treat those affected by it, continue to prevent the spread of HIV and change our world to stop something similar from happening again.