The name has gained currency for the role which long-distance truck drivers played in the early spread of AIDS in the 1980s (also described in the book The Hot Zone in Part 4).
The 2000 edition for 'Africa Central and South' indicates three 'transcontinental routes' between Kinshasa and Kisangani or Bukavu, all of them with very long stretches of road in the lowest category of highway condition, described as 'earth tracks likely to become impassable in bad weather'.
The editions published in the 1980s and 1990s indicate the same, an absence of paved roads through 750 km of rainforest from central to eastern DR Congo.
Prostitutes at truck stops helped spread the disease even faster, and it was also referred to as the 'AIDS Highway'.
[citation needed] It has been established from analysing archived samples of HIV, that HIV-1 originated in the Kinshasa of the 1920s and spread through the railroad into Brazzaville and the mining province, Katanga long before AIDS was recognized in the early 80s.