Introduction - Historical Notes

The AIDS Pandemic - AIDS World-wide I

The origin of AIDS, like that of syphilis, remains unclear to this day. The first patients of the new epidemic appeared in 1981 on the West and East coasts of the USA. They were all gay men, and initially it was left to the gay communities of San Francisco (S. F. AIDS Foundation) and New York (Gay Men’s Health Crisis, GMHC) to develop prevention strategies. However, as the infection spread, medical research intensified and began to produce results: In 1982, the now accepted scientific name for the disease was proposed – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). In 1983, the virus causing it was found (Human Immunodeficiency Virus: HIV). In 1985 the first test for HIV antibodies was introduced, and the first international AIDS conference was organized in Atlanta, GA.
Finally, in 1986, the US Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, to the consternation of many, adopted the strategy developed by American gay physicians and endorsed by his country’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC). He sent a brochure to every American household explaining the disease and proposing preventive measures such as general sex education and the use of condoms. Studying the American experience, the European countries decided to follow the same health policies, and thus, on the whole, the Western industrialized countries were able to achieve some measure of control over the disease.