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On June 5, 1981,
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (published by the U.S. government's
Centers for Disease Control) published a report which officially announced
the start of the AIDS epidemic. The report document five cases of a rare
form of pneumonia (usually seen only in newborns or people receiving immunosuppressants)
among homosexual men in Los Angeles hospitals.
A month later, The
New York Times ran a report on 41, mostly young gay men (including two
in Denmark) had contracted Karposi's sarcoma, a rare skin cancer that
normally affected older people and young Africans. Ordinarily not life
threatening, eight of the homosexuals died from it. Since cancer is not
contagious, doctors were puzzled by the outbreak.
Soon, other gay men
began falling victim to a host of other uncommon diseases and opportunistic
infections indicating failing immune systems. Still not knowing the true
cause, the underlying ailment was initially labeled gay-related immunodeficiency
disease. But soon, as the disease appeared with growing frequency among
other groups of people - prostitutes, intravenous drug users, blood-transfusion
recipients, heterosexual Haitians and Africans, many researchers had switched
to a broader term: acquired inmmunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
By December 1982 nearly
1,600 cases had been reported worldwide, the incidence of AIDS began doubling
every six months and nearly half the patients originally diagnosed with
the disease had died. By 1994, the incurable disease had struck an estimated
three million people worldwide.
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