Moloundou
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Mouloundou | |
|---|---|
  Mouloundou Location in Cameroon | |
| Coordinates: 2°3′N 15°10′E / 2.050°N 15.167°E | |
| Country |  Cameroon |
| Province | East |
| Division | Boumba-et-Ngoko |
Moloundou is a town and arrondissement (district) in the Boumba-et-Ngoko Division of southeastern Cameroon's East Province. Moloundou sits on the north bank of the Dja River, also known as the Ngoko River, which forms the Cameroon–Republic of Congo border here. It is close to Boumba Bek and Nki National Parks on the Dja River. It has a mayor and several decentralised administrative services.[1]
In the 1890s, Moloundou was "one of the richest rubber areas of Africa" and Germans established a rubber-making plant here.[2]
Scientists have pointed to the area around Moloundou as the most likely place where the simian immunodeficiency virus (specifically, SIVcpz) crossed over from the blood of a central chimpanzee to humans — becoming HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The genetic structure of SIV in the area's chimpanzees is the closest known to HIV-1 group M, the subtype of HIV responsible for more than 90% of HIV/AIDS cases worldwide.[3][4]
"There is now no doubt that the original cross-species transmission occurred somewhere in this area, close to the town of Moloundou on the Cameroonian side, or perhaps near Ouesso in Congo-Brazzaville about 90 km to the east," wrote scientist Jacques Pépin in The Origins of AIDS. "This is where our story began and where patient zero got infected, whoever he or she was."[5]
