The Chimp and the River: The Genesis of the AIDS Epidemic - David Quammen

Zoonotic viruses are those that pass from animals to humans. They've plagued us for as long as we've existed and they cross over with more regularity than we may realize. Most zoonotic diseases stop in a relatively short amount of time, because humans aren't an ideal host. SARS, West Nile, avian and swine flus are all familiar zoonotic diseases. But none of them have been as difficult for our medicine to manage as HIV. Most people think of the virus that causes AIDS as a relatively recent affliction, but, as David Quammen explains in his new book The Chimp and the River, HIV made the leap from chimps to humans in the southeastern corner of Cameroon over a century ago. Quammen's book explains how the virus likely spilled-over and turned into the global scourge that it is today.