A pandemic anniversary: 40 years of HIV/AIDS

“In the period October 1980–May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died. All 5 patients had laboratory-confirmed previous or current cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and candidal mucosal infection. Case reports of these patients follow.” The five patients described in this historic US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report on June 5, 1981, were previously healthy gay men aged 29–36 years. Their illnesses and deaths marked the dark dawn of the recognition of AIDS. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has now been with us for four decades and at least 32 million lives have been lost.

There are many histories of HIV/AIDS. Countless stories of loss, of activism, of rage and resilience, of scientific triumph after years of futility and…