The First AIDS Case: A Look Back at the History and Impact of HIV and AIDS

ZONABANTEN.com – Today in history: the first AIDS case was reported on June 5, 1981. In the 1980s and early 1990s, an epidemic of HIV and AIDS spread across the United States and around the world, even though the disease appeared decades earlier. Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV is a virus that attacks the immune system, especially CD4 cells or T cells. This virus is transmitted through bodily fluids, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluids, anal fluids, and breast milk.

Historically, HIV was most often spread through unprotected sex, sharing needles for drug use, and through birth.

Over time, HIV can destroy so many CD4 cells that the body is unable to fight infection and disease, eventually leading to the most severe form of HIV infection: acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS.

People with AIDS are very susceptible to cancer and life-threatening infections, such as pneumonia.

Although there is no cure for HIV or AIDS, sufferers who receive early treatment can live almost as long as people without the virus.

Also Read: December 1 Commemorates What? There is World AIDS Day, Know the History and Dangers of this Disease

A 2019 study in the medical journal, The Lancet, showed that antiviral medication effectively stopped the spread of HIV.

On June 5, 1981, the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published an article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR): Pneumocystis Pneumonia—Los Angeles.