35 years ago, the Center's newsletter for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States reported the first cases of AIDS, a disease that was still mysterious and nameless.
Since then, the disease has left more than 34 million dead, according to estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The article, published on June 5, 1981 in CDC's Mortality Bulletin and then served in various media, describes the case of five young homosexuals in California, all hospitalized with pneumonia type carinii pneumonia (PCP). Two of them had already died when the report was released.
All of them, men between 29 and 36, were healthy before being affected by the disease. Very rare, PCP often strikes patients with compromised immune systems, which began to draw the attention of doctors.
Over time, new cases were reported, not only of PCP, but also a rare type of cancer, Kaposi's sarcoma, also in young gay men. At the time, a task force to combat opportunistic infections was created.
James Curran, who was in charge of the team, said many experts believed that the epidemic was caused by a new virus, "but many others do not and they were convinced it was an overload of the immune system."
Many of the people affected by the syndrome had a bohemian lifestyle and considered unhealthy.
"At first we did not think that the blood was a factor, but then appeared the first cases of people with hemophilia who were not homosexual men and injecting drug users," he said.
Today, the diagnosis of AIDS is no longer a death sentence, because of current treatments. According to WHO, in 2014, 1.2 million people died from AIDS worldwide.
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