AIDS Virus Came To Britain Six Times, Study Shows

The AIDS virus came to Britain at least six separate times in the early and mid-1980s, not once as has been widely believed, researchers reported on Monday. The team lead by University College London researchers found that HIV-1 subtype B -- that most commonly found in Britain -- spread quickly via at least six large transmission chains of men having sex with men. There seems to be no geographic center for any of the epidemics, suggesting that men who carried the virus moved around the country, the researchers said in the report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.