The history of HIV/AIDS in the world represents one of the most significant public health challenges of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The disease, caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), gradually emerged as a global pandemic that reshaped medical research, public health policy, social attitudes toward disease, and international cooperation. Scientific evidence suggests that HIV originated from simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV) found in non-human primates in Central and West Africa. Through a process known as zoonotic transmission, the virus crossed from chimpanzees and other primates to humans, most likely during hunting or handling of bushmeat. Genetic studies indicate that this cross-species transmission occurred in the early twentieth century, probably around the 1920s in the region that is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. For several decades after its emergence, HIV infections remained largely unrecognized because the virus spreads slowly and its symptoms resemble those of other diseases. Urbanization, colonial trade routes, and increased mobility in African cities contributed to the gradual spread of the virus. By the mid-twentieth century, HIV had already begun circulating in parts of Africa, although the medical community was unaware of its existence. Retrospective analysis of preserved blood samples later revealed evidence of HIV infection in humans from as early as the 1950s and 1960s. The first recognized cases of AIDS were reported in 1981 in the United States when doctors observed unusual clusters of rare infections and cancers among young homosexual men in cities such as Los Angeles and New York. Patients were suffering from conditions such as Pneumocystis pneumonia and Kaposi’s sarcoma, diseases typically associated with severely weakened immune systems. These cases were reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), marking the first official recognition of a new disease. At the time, the condition was initially referred to as “Gay-Related