Francoise Barre-Sinoussi today: greatly admired for her continuing work in the field of HIV/AIDS.
DNA: When you first identified the HIV virus in 1983, did you have any idea of the enormous impact the disease would have on the world?
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi: We had no idea of the magnitude of the virus. In my country, France, we had around 50 cases of people with symptoms associated with AIDS, so we were in the very early years of the epidemic. It was only later on – 1984-’85 – when we realised what was going on in Africa.