A report entitled "Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocytosis Carinii Pneumonia among homosexual men in New York City and California" in the MMWR in July 1981 alerted the world to the appearance of a completely new disease. The opportunistic infections and cancers occurring in these patients had previously only been seen in patients who were immunosuppressed. Homosexual men were the first as a major risk group to be identified. Others quickly followed. The pattern of occurrence clearly indicated an infectious agent as the likely cause, and within two years the virus had been identified in Europe and the USA. In Europe it was named Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus (LAV) by Montagnier its discover, and in the USA, Human T cell Lymphotrophic Virus III (HTLV III). It is now known as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).