Who was the first human AIDS patient?

HIV-1

The answer to this is not known but theoretical studies indicate that the first occurrence of HIV group M in humans was between 1908 and 1940.

Using stored clinical samples, the virus was detected in the plasma of a man who died in 1959 in what is now Kinshasa (then Leopoldville) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sequencing of this HIV showed that it is very close to the ancestral sequence of HIV subtypes B and D. This would indicate that HIV-1 had only been around in the human population for a relatively short time.

The earliest known case of AIDS in the USA was in St Louis in 1968. This was a 15 year old boy who had never traveled outside the United States but was thought to be a prostitute.

The first known case of AIDS in Europe was in a 29 year old Norwegian sailor, Arvid Noe, who died in 1976. He had visited several ports in Africa and was known to be sexually active since he contracted a gonorrheal infection. He probably acquired the virus in the Cameroon in the early sixties. He spread the infection to his wife who infected her baby.

In December 1977, a Danish surgeon who had traveled to Zaïre in 1972 and was probably exposed to blood from many Congolese patients, died in Denmark with mysterious symptoms.  Her tissues were later examined and tested positive fir HIV.

It was reported that a case of AIDS had occurred in Manchester, England, in 1959. This was based on subsequent analysis of stored tissue samples; however, the conclusion is now suspect.

HIV-2

A Portuguese man (Senhor José) was the first confirmed case of HIV-2. He is believed to have been infected in Guinea-Bissau in 1966 and died in 1978.