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The illness was first recognized in the early 1980s <ref>Pneumocystis pneumonia -- Los Angeles. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 1981;30:250-252)</ref> as gay men presented to their doctors with a rare lung disease called ''Pneumocystis carinii'' pneumonia (PCP). Early on, the syndrome took on a variety of names, including "Gay-related immune deficiency (GRID)"[[citation needed]]. The [[CDC|Centers for Disease Control]] noticed an increase in the requests for the drugs needed to treat this illness and launched an epidemiologic investigation. Although the first cases of the disease probably go back to the 1950s, the epidemic was not recognized until the early 1980s. The early epidemic occurred in two main branches; in the US and other developed countries, and in sub-Saharan Africa. In the US, the early epidemic was primarily spread by homosexual sex, intravenous drug use, and blood transfusions. In Africa, transmission was almost exclusively by heterosexual sex. Currently, most new infections worldwide are spread by heterosexual sex.