1959. First know case of human HIV- A blood sample is taken from a man in the now Democratic Republic of the Congo. The sample is stored for years.
1979. From June 1979 to November 1981, 12 cases of Kaposi's Sarcoma(a rare skin cancer) are found. It had been over a decade since the cancer had been seen in this city.
1981. Dr. Michael Gottlieb of University of California, Los Angeles, treats a homosexual man for pneumonia. He finds that this patient's CD4 T-Cells, or helper cells, which build the immune system, are missing.
Simultaneously, Dr. Gerald Friedland in the Bronx was treating patients as well for pneumonia. However, the difference lied in the patients; while the world was thinking that this was a "gay man's infection," Friendland found that his patients were not gay men, but instead, injecting drug users.
Gay activist Larry Kramer reads about this gay male disease and holds a meeting in his apartment. After one year, the Gay Men's Health Crisis was formed, the first ever AIDS activist organization.
1982. Other groups are now targeted: hemophiliacs and Haitians.
In July 1982, the Morbidity and Morality Weekly Report publishes 34 cases of the new disease among male and female Haitians living in 5 different states in the US.
The MMWR publishes again a case study of 3 heterosexual hemophiliac males that are suffering from the same type of pneumonia.
20 month old baby girl is infected due to a blood transfusion.
AIDS is named- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
1983. Two females reported in the MMWR to have the disease. Their only risk factors seem to be that they have sex with infected men. For the first time, the report suggests that perhaps this disease is transmitted through both homosexual and heterosexual relations.
Representatives come together in Geneva for the World Health Organization's first meeting addressing AIDS. At this point, many dozen countries have been infected and Europe is now banning importing blood from the United States.
A study is done in Zaire (the now Democratic Republic of the Congo) and doctors find nearly 40 cases of patients that are in advanced states of the disease, noting that half of their patients are women.
Evidence of a retrovirus is noted in France, by Dr. Francoise Sinnousi, from the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
1984. A blood test is discovered.
1985. Because of the new blood test, the Health and Human Services Secretary, Margaret Heckler, of the Reagan administration talks of a vaccine within the next two years.
Ryan White, a teenage hemophiliac is not allowed to go to school because he contracted AIDS through contaminated blood products. Ryan goes onto be a symbol of this tragic time in American history and takes advantage of the attention he gets to advocate for AIDS rights and awareness.
The first time that President Ronald Reagan mentions AIDS in public is at a press conference, saying that he understands the parents who react to hemophiliac children in a school with their own children, furthering the prejudice and taboo that was a part of the lives of children like Ryan White at this time.
aidsnetwork.net1986. HIV is discovered.
Dr. Margaret Fischl shows that AZT (zidovudine) slows AIDS' regeneration in patients' immune systems. Only 1 out of the 145 patients receiving this drug in the trial dies, but the drug has various sideeffects that cause patients to stop taking them. Those that continue taking them find that eventually the virus mutates and builds resistance to the drug.
1987. After a court ruling that the three, hemophiliac Ray brothers should be allowed to go to school, their house is burnt down.
The CIA writes a secret report on AIDS in Africa, suspecting that every year millions of Africans die of AIDS. Interestingly, this report also touches on the Soviet wrongful suspicion that due to the enormous effect of AIDS in Africa on the Soviets, the Americans must have created the virus as a biological weapon.
Percentages of adult population living with AIDS in AfricaVaccine trials begin.
Reagan delivers his first speech on AIDS at the request of his old friend, Elizabeth Taylor.
The AIDS quilt is displayed for the first time in Washington, D.C., marking the first ever AIDS Awarness Day on December 1.
At this time there are 45,000 cases in the US, 7,000 in Europe and 6,000 reported cases in Africa.
AIDS quilt1988. Nobel Prize winner Dr. Jonas Salk attempts to create an AIDS vaccine much like his polio vaccine using dead pieces of HIV.
AIDS brochures are created and mailed to all US homes.
1989. Didanosine (ddl) is a new drug for patients for whom AZT does not work.
There are deaths caused by an unauthorized trial for a new drug called Compound Q. The motive for the deaths are not certain since the patients were in very advanced stages of the disease.
1990. Former President Reagan delivers a speech at the Pediatric AIDS Foundation and says that he has "learned that all kinds of people can get AIDS, even children."
Hundreds of children in orphanages in Romania are infected with AIDS.
Nearly one percent of South Africa's population is infected with AIDS. Over the next decade South Africa will see an increase in rates to 25%.
1991. The Red Ribbon campaign is introduced.
1992. Bill Clinton is elected president and immediately addresses the AIDS epidemic in various speeches and appearances.
Zalcitabine (ddC) is approved by the FDA to be used with AZT.
1994. AZT is proven to reduce mother to child transmition of HIV.
The Global AIDS Action Network is founded.
1995. Researchers with Dr. David Ho discover that the infected body produces between 100 million and 1 billion new virus particles daily. This discovery will AIDS in furthering treatment.
1996. Dr. David Ho's new antiretroviral therapy is known as the AIDS cocktail and is to be taken several times per day by AIDS patients. There is an immediate improvement in patients, but the costs are overwhelming and becomes the next issue to be addressed.
UNAIDS is introduced.
After a Brazilian schoolteacher sues her government for her constitutional right to medicine, Brazil provides free drugs to all of its HIV patients.
1997. US deaths caused by AIDS decline by 40%.
1998. At a time when 1,500 HIV infected babies are born each day, Glaxo Wellcome declares that AZT prices will be cut down as much 75% for developing countries, as it greatly prevents mother to child contamination.
President Clinton does not allow funding for needle exchange due to "overwhelming opposition"
1999. New information arises from researcher Beatrice Hahn of the Univeristy of Alabama suggesting that HIV 1 came from a subspecies of chimpanzees found in West Central Africa. She finds that the strain of SIV found in three of the chimps are extremely close to HIV 1 in appearance.
AIDS is officially Africa's number one killer.
2000. George W. Bush is elected president.
2001. Bono, from the group U2, lobbies in Congress, with a focus on Senator Jesse Helms, a very conservative man who had been in Congress throughout the spread of the epidemic.
Kofi Annan proposes a Global Fund for AIDS, to which President Bush contributes $200 million.
2002. The Next Wave nations are declared: Ethiopia, Nigeria, India, China and Russia, who together make up 40% of the world's population, are believed to be in their early and middle ages of HIV and AIDS.
2003. Fuzeon is approved, a new kind of drug that is designed to block HIV's ability to take away the CD4 T-Cells.
President Bush announces his $15 billion plan for AIDS prevention, treatment and care. He create's the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief which targets 15 countries mainly in Africa and the Caribbean. Only $1 billion is going to the Global Fund, however, which targets 130 different countries.
2004. In 2002, South African courts order that the government must provide antiretroviral drugs to pregnant women urgently. This distribution occurs only two years after the ruling, right before elections.
The adult film industry is targeted when four actors get HIV from on screen sex. The industry shuts down for more than a month when over 50 actors are quarantined.
2005. Brazil turns down US aid when the US government requires that Brazil does not distribute aid among its prostitutes, and Brazil refuses, claiming that sex workers are a large percentage of the problem and should not be ignored.
2006. New drugs are spoken of: Merck and Gilead present data on prospective drugs that would stop the enzyme integrase that lets HIV's DNA get into the T-Cell's DNA. Merck particularly promisses new drugs by 2007.
