A look back at HIV/AIDS

The History of HIV/AIDS

Twenty-five years later: A look back at HIV/AIDS

The first sign of HIV/AIDS in 1981 would tell little of the widespread future devastation. Rather it appeared as an anomaly in what was largely a marginalized population. HIV/AIDS was first seen as Kaposi's Sarcoma in young gay men in New York, an oddity, as traditionally Kaposi's Sarcoma had mainly been diagnosed in elderly men of Italian or Jewish descent.

At about the same time, the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta noticed that gay men in California and New York were showing an alarming rise in a rare form of pneumonia known as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.

This initial link to the gay community would have lasting negative repercussions for the way the world would view HIV/AIDS and led to the terms "Gay Compromise Syndrome" and "Gay-Related Immune Deficiency." In linking the gay community to HIV/AIDS, the medical community chose to ignore that both Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia were being seen increasingly in intravenous drug users, both heterosexual and homosexual.

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A year later, in 1982, AIDS began to be seen in haemophiliacs and Haitians and the disease was renamed the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

At this time, little was know about the transmission of AIDS, but with the emergence of the disease in hemophiliacs, it became apparent that AIDS could be transmitted through blood products. With the appearance of AIDS in 1983 in women, it now became apparent that AIDS could be transmitted through both homosexual and heterosexual intercourse.

In the same year, scientists at the Institute Pasteur in Paris isolated a virus that they believed caused AIDS. However, little was made of this discovery in the scientific community.

In 1984, a year later, it was announced that Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute had isolated the virus causing AIDS. However, in 1985 it was confirmed that the virus isolated by Dr. Gallo was the same one previously isolated by the Institute Pasteur. Later that year, the U.S Food and Drug Administration approved the first AIDS test.

Because of the initial association of AIDS with the gay community, AIDS sufferers had to deal with and continue to deal with stigma and discrimination in addition to the health aspects of the disease.

Even today with the progress in information and resources, AIDS sufferers in many parts of the world still bear the social burden of being HIV positive, therefore hampering their ability to manage the disease and lead productive lives.