Model showing the structure of the HIV virus as a cross-section on a stand with one removable part, unknown maker, China, 2010-2015

In 1986, an international committee recommended that this virus be called HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). Prior to this, it were named by those who had identified them. In 1983, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montaigner detected a retrovirus that attacked lymphocytes a blood cell important to the immune system. They named it LAV, for lymphadenopathy associated virus.

Robert Gallo published a series of papers in May 1984 about a retrovirus he called HTLV-III. Later tests received the viruses were the same. Both sets of researchers also established that HIV and AIDS (Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) were connected. Prior to their work, little was known about the cause of HIV. Diagnostic blood tests for HIV were developed in 1985 but years of further research was needed to produce effective treatments, enabling people with HIV to live long and healthy lives.

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montaigner shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their work.