Disease dynamics theory predicts that after the introduction of an infected individual into a susceptible population, the number of infected individuals will grow exponentially until a point at which the depletion of the susceptible class starts to affect the rate of increase of the infectious class. The disease then starts to self-limit its own rate of increase towards an equilibrium with the size of the infectious population. Here, we explored whether the HIV dynamics described exponential growth as theoretically predicted during the 1980s decade for 64 countries. We focused on the HIV population rate of change per infectious individual (RHIV) of the infectious class. We used nonlinear regression between HIV infectious class size and RHIV to determine the dynamic behavior of HIV. The prevalence of HIV increased exponentially in most countries, except for highincome countries. The world during the 1980s could be separated into two groups based on HIV dynamics at the country scale.