[CobaltBlue]

Speaking of drawing strange conclusions, try this on for size:

HIV-1 is thought to be a zoonosis man got from the chimpanzee(actually chimpanzees get an SIV which is closely related to HIV-1, but not actually HIV-1 while HIV-2 is thought to be a zoonosis man got from the sooty mangabey (again, an SIV which isn't exactly the same as HIV-2). Chimpanzees don't get the SIV which is closely related to HIV-2, while sooty mangabeys don't get the SIV which is closely related to HIV-1.

HIV-2 probably appeared in man circa 1940, HIV-1 probably appeared in man circa 1950-1960.

Why would two such different diseases appear in the same host at about the same time and place?

One hypothesis: dirty needles. But that begs the question of origin. This article hypothesizes that viruses humans infected with SIV recombined into HIV - which would probably mean that the SIV precursors of HIV-1 recombined into HIV-1, while the SIV precursors of HIV-2 recombined into HIV-2 but that still leaves the very strange coincidence.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11405938&dopt=Abstract

And what about the Norwegian sailor infected with HIV-1 prior to 1971?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9468138&dopt=Abstract

[muawiyah]

Whalers?

[VadeRetro]

Multiple phylogenetic analyses not only authenticate this case as the oldest known HIV-1 infection, but also place its viral sequence near the ancestral node of subtypes B and D in the major group, indicating that these HIV-1 subtypes, and perhaps all major-group viruses, may have evolved from a single introduction into the African population not long before 1959.

If this stuff had been in the human population for as long as you've been saying, we'd have strains out the wazoo and phylogentic analyses wouldn't point to a recent introduction to humans.