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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Although
The Chimp and the River
focuses primarily on the ecological origins of HIV, and on the scientific work done to trace those origins, the scope of the human catastrophe that is the AIDS pandemic must be noted again, first and foremost, even here in a brief note to record literary debts. We all stand chastened, grieved, and diminished by the miseries and losses that have been suffered by our fellow men and women, as well as awed by and grateful for the courage, determination, and heart of those who have fought against this catastrophe in so many ways.

As noted above, a number of busy scientists gave their generous cooperation to my research toward this book, by sitting for interviews or responding to e-mail or telephone questions: Robert Gallo, Jane Goodall, Beatrice Hahn, Jean-Marie Kabongo, Phyllis Kanki, Brandon Keele, Elizabeth Lonsdorf, Martin Muller, J. J. Muyembe, Martine Peeters, Jane Raphael, Dirk Teuwen, Karen Terio, and Michael Worobey. Most of those people, in addition, did me the vital favor of reading and correcting draft pages. Three other scientists, whose work does not directly involve AIDS,
also read this book in its original form (as a long chapter of
Spillover
) and offered keen editorial advice: Charlie Calisher, Mike Gilpin, and Jens Kuhn. I’m deeply grateful to them all.

My gratitude extends also to Patrick Atimnedi, Anton Collins, Zacharie Dongmo, Ofir Drori, Mike Fay, Barbara Fruth, Shadrack Kamenya, Iddi Lipende, Julius Lutwama, Pegue Manga, Neville Mbah, Apollonaire Mbala, Achile Mengamenya, Jean Vivien Mombouli, Albert Munga, Max Mviri, Hanson Njiforti, Moïse Tchuialeu, and Lee White, all of whom assisted my inquiries about HIV’s origins in Africa. There were others who helped in many ways during the broader effort of researching
Spillover
(including my editors and other colleagues at
National Geographic
, among whom that larger project had its beginning), and though their fields of expertise or activity lay outside the immediate frame of the HIV/AIDS story, they contributed much toward allowing me to place that story within its appropriate context: as the most consequential of all modern instances of zoonotic disease. I thanked them by name in
Spillover
, and I thank them again collectively here.

My other signal debts of gratitude are to Maria Guarnaschelli, my longtime editor at W. W. Norton, who gave her keen eye, her astute judgment, and her literary passion to this book as well as a half dozen others we’ve collaborated on over the past twenty-five years; and to Amanda Urban, my wonderfully ferocious and smart agent at ICM. Many other people at Norton and ICM have also contributed to this project, and I very much appreciate their work. Renée Golden, Binky Urban’s predecessor in my professional life, helped me for decades along the route that led toward this sort of project. Gloria Thiede, faithful Gloria, transcribed all the interviews quoted here. Emily Krieger combined assiduous research with a reader’s sense of flow, both crucial,
in serving as my fact-checker. Daphne Gillam drew the artful, human-handed map. My amazing wife Betsy was always nearby to listen, to read, to discuss, to counsel, and to hold the family together, even while fulfilling her own professional duties. Harry, Nick, Stella, Oscar: Thanks for all you give. I’ve been blessed with an extraordinary network of colleagues, sources, professional partners, friends, and loved ones, and I’m quite aware that the work couldn’t happen without them.

INDEX

Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.

Abong Mbang, Cameroon, 75

Africa:

Central,
see
Central Africa

East, 118, 132

southern, 132

sub-Saharan, 34

West, 37, 38, 40, 118, 132

African green monkey (
Chlorocebus
), 30–32, 33–34

AIDS:

in chimpanzees, 112, 116, 117, 122–25

emergence of, 17–23, 43–139

in gay men, 17–18, 23, 24, 44, 139

geographical dissemination of, 131–39

in Haitians, 19, 22, 133–38

in hemophiliacs, 23, 24, 138

Kinshasa emergence of, 68–69, 71–72, 108–9, 125–26, 129–33

as pandemic, 38, 80, 125

R0
of, 69, 70, 72, 87, 108

sexual mores and, 70, 109, 126

sexual transmission of, 20, 24, 108, 128

syringe reuse and, 23, 24, 108, 126–31, 139

threshold density of, 128

transmissibility of, 20

as zoonotic disease, 17, 125

see also
HIV-1

Ammann, Karl, 76, 80

And the Band Played On
(Shilts), 20, 136

Angola, 132

antibodies, screening for, 63, 64

to HIV, 32, 39

to SIV, 30, 113, 114

atoxyl, 128

Auerbach, David M., 20–21, 22

Bailes, Elizabeth, 111

Bakwele people, 77–79, 85

Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise, 27

basic reproduction rate,
see R0

beka (initiation ceremony), 78–79

Belgian Congo,
see
Congo, Democratic Republic of the

Belgium, 133

biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratories, 50

blood plasma trade, 134–36

blood transfusions, hepatitis B and, 20–21

Bobangi people, 103–5

Boumba Bek National Park, Cameroon, 76

Brazzaville, ROC, 70, 73, 106–8, 109, 125

Burundi, 52

bushmeat, 50–51, 74, 76, 94–96

great apes as, 77–79, 81, 94

Buy’em-Sell’ems, 77, 90–91, 92–93

Cameroon, 126, 128

HIV in, 42

as locus of HIV spillover, 65, 66–73, 79, 80, 109, 118, 125

logging in, 75–77

poaching in, 74–75, 80–81

Candida
yeast, 17–18, 22

Cape Verde, 32

CD4 protein receptor, 85

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), AIDS and, 18, 20, 21, 137

Central Africa:

HIV in, 42, 132

as locus of HIV-1 spillover, 30, 62

trypanosomiasis inoculations in, 126–29

Central African Republic, 80–81, 132

Centre International de Recherches Médicales (CIRMF), 39

Cercocebus atys
(sooty mangabey), 34–37, 38, 40, 43, 50

“Chimpanzee Reservoirs of Pandemic and Nonpandemic HIV-1” (Keele et al.), 68

chimpanzees (
Pan troglodytes
):

AIDS in, 112, 116, 117, 122–25

bushmeat from, 77–79, 94

central (
P. t. troglodytes
), 62, 65, 68

eastern (
P. t. schweinfurthii
), 63

as HIV reservoirs, 39–41, 62

P. t. vellerosus
, 65

SIV in,
see
simian immunovirus (SIV), in chimpanzees

Chimpanzees of Gombe, The
(Goodall), 115

China, blood plasma donors in, 135

Chlorocebus
(African green monkeys), 30–32, 33–34

Congo, Democratic Republic of the (DRC; Zaire), 52, 55, 56, 126

emergence of AIDS pandemic in, 22, 44, 46, 68–69, 71–72, 108–9, 125–26

Haitians in, 133–34

Congo, Republic of the (ROC), 66, 73, 80–81, 82, 83, 93–94

emergent AIDS cases in, 69–70, 72–73

logging in, 82

Congo basin, 72, 76

Congolese Red Cross, 130

Congo River, 62, 68, 69–72, 105–6, 125

Côte d’Ivoire, 42

Curtis, Tom, 53, 54

Cut Hunter, 83–87, 126

cut-hunter hypothesis, 50–51, 68–69, 83–91, 96–108, 112, 126

dead-end hosts, 128

deforestation, 75–77

Delta Regional Primate Research Center, 35–37

diphtheria, 51

disease,
see
infectious disease

Dispensaire Antivénérien, 130–32

DNA, in retroviruses, 24, 85

Dongmo, Zacharie, 76–78

Douala, Cameroon, 73

DRC60, 46–50, 55, 58, 59–60, 72, 131, 138

Drori, Ofir, 73–75, 77

Dugas, Gaëtan (Patient Zero), 19–21, 44, 85, 139

duikers, 74, 94

Duvalier, François “Papa Doc,” 133, 136

Duvalier, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc,” 136

Eating Apes
(Peterson), 76

Ebola virus (
Zaire ebolavirus
), 39, 81, 139

ecosystems, human-caused disruption of, 75–77, 82

epidemics, threshold density in, 128

see also
infectious disease

Equatorial Guinea, 42

Essex, Myron “Max,” 28–33, 54

Ethiopia, 132

Europe, AIDS in, 42

evolution, 33

of HIV, 56, 59–61, 109, 125, 129

Fay, J. Michael, 73

fecal sampling, 64–65, 66, 117–19

feline leukemia virus (FeLV), 25, 28

femmes libres
(free women), 71, 130–31, 134

Franceville, Gabon, 39

free women (
femmes libres
), 71, 130–31, 134

French Equatorial Africa (FEA), 70–71, 127–28

Friedman-Kien, Alvin E., 18–19, 22, 23

Gabon, 126

AIDS in, 42, 72

Gallo, Robert, 25–26, 27, 28, 29, 32

Gao, Feng, 62, 63

Ghana, 42

Gibraltar, 44

Gilbert, Tom, 136–38

Gimble (chimpanzee), 114, 117, 118, 119

Gombe National Park, Tanzania, 63, 112–25

Gombe Stream Research Center, 114–15, 120

gonorrhea, 129, 130

Goodall, Jane, 63, 112, 113, 114–18

gorillas, bushmeat from, 78, 79, 94

Gorinstein, Joseph B., 135, 136

Gottlieb, Michael, 17–18, 22, 23, 44, 139

great apes, 80–81

as bushmeat, 77–79, 81, 94

see also
chimpanzees; gorillas

greater spot-nosed monkeys, 110, 111