[Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. A new disease of infectious origin?]

The acquired immune deficiency syndrome appears to be associated with infection by lymphotropic virus or viruses eventually responsible for T-cell deficiency of extremely severe prognosis. The syndrome has been reported in the United States, in Haiti, in equatorial Africa and recently in Europe. Transmission of the causal infection by sexual and/or blood contacts may account for the occurrence of the disease in male homosexuals, in drug-addicts practising intravenous injections and in about ten haemophiliacs in the U.S.A. In the absence of serological and/or virological markers of the causative agent(s), the place of the lymphoadenopathic type and of localized forms of Kaposi's sarcoma remains to be defined.