Jimu news reporter Li Lili
Intern Wan Shiya
On June 5, 1981, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Weekly Public Health Digest published a strange report: Five young gay men in Los Angeles were diagnosed with an unusual lung infection, pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), and two of them had died.
People call this disease Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). This is the first official record of AIDS in the world. In 1982, the disease was named AIDS.
Soon after, AIDS spread rapidly to all continents, claiming more than 34 million lives worldwide.
The first AIDS hospital in the United States. Image source: CNN
In the 80s, the virus was recognized and recognized
The first few years of the AIDS epidemic were a troubling period. The Reagan administration paid little attention to AIDS, and four years later, Reagan publicly mentioned aids.
In 1982 and 1983, exchanges between Reagan's press secretary and journalists showed that senior officials and mainstream society viewed AIDS as a joke rather than a concern.
AIDS researcher Alexandra Levine said in a recent interview with the New England Journal of Medicine: "How terrible it is to see society as a whole turn a blind eye to this suffering, many of my colleagues refuse to help, refuse to care, refuse to become AIDS professionals." ”
In October 1985, American actor Roque Hudson died, the first celebrity to die of AIDS. One after another, British singer and queen lead singer Freddie Mochuli and legendary Russian dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev both died of the disease.
Early '80s, Fauci's "Dark Years"
In the early 1980s, AIDS was considered a "death sentence.".
Scientists and doctors alike are struggling to understand the causes of AIDS and how it spreads, and finding a cure is extremely difficult.
At the height of the AIDS epidemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently called those periods the "dark years" of his career in a recent interview with the U.S. media.
Fauci in 1990, image source: CNN
"I kept looking for appropriate treatments for my patients, but then I became a daily care for people who were inevitable and would eventually die in a short period of time." Fauci said.
This is an experience that many clinicians who care for early-stage AIDS patients have had. AIDS is the leading cause of death among Americans ages 25 to 44.
Treatment appeared in the late 80s and 90s
This trend began to shift in the late 1980s and 1990s, with more effective treatments changing the inevitable death from HIV.
On March 19, 1987, the FDA approved an antiretroviral drug called AZT to treat HIV infection.
Public perceptions of the virus have also begun to shift, thanks in part to well-known activists and celebrities.
Princess Diana, who has played an important role in breaking the stigma of AIDS, was photographed visiting AIDS patients in hospital wards and shaking hands with them without gloves.
In 1991, NBA legend "Magician" Elvin Johnson revealed that he declared himself infected with HIV and that he was a heterosexual black man, which proved that anyone can get AIDS.
Johnson was photographed on The Los Angeles Lakers on November 17, 1991, when he announced he was infected with AIDS. Image source: CNN
In 1996, the FDA approved the first protease inhibitor, a development that led to highly effective antiretroviral therapy (HAART).
HAART, also known as "cocktail therapy," was proposed by Chinese-American scientist He Dayi to treat AIDS through a combination of three or more antiviral drugs. Although HAART does not cure AIDS, it can keep the virus under control.
It was this year that the number of AIDS deaths in the United States began to decline.
Fauci told the US media: "These drugs not only save their lives, allow them to basically have a normal lifespan, but also prevent them from infecting other people." ”
One researcher said: "Despair turns into hope, hope becomes faith, faith turns into joy." Many patients return home and return to a near-normal life. ”
After 40 years, there is still no antidote
In 2012, the FDA approved the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in adults at high risk of infection, the first daily drug to prevent HIV infection and one of the most important milestones in the treatment of AIDS.
Public health challenges have remained these years, with about 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States at the end of 2018. Individual differences in treatment are large, and drug resistance among blacks and Hispanics is becoming more common.
According to UNAIDS 2020 data, there are 37.6 million people living with HIV worldwide. Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, 34.7 million people have died from AIDS-related diseases.
Unfortunately, despite the U.S. goal of finding an AIDS vaccine within 10 years in 1997, 40 years later, there is still no vaccine or cure.
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