What was aids originally known as

Over the decades, the virus spread through Africa, and to other parts of the world. In the US, reporting of unusually high rates of the rare forms of pneumonia and cancer in young gay men begins.

Cases are also reported in Injection Drug Users by the end of the year. In addition to the outbreak in the U. Of particular concern was an outbreak in central Africa among heterosexual patients.

In the U. At the end of and the beginning of , the U. Originally a chemotherapy drug, AZT worked so well during its trial that the FDA halted the trial on the grounds that it would be unethical to deprive those patients who received a placebo of the actual drug.

By , over 2. Vietnam, Cambodia and China also reported steady increases in cases. The UN estimated that in alone, 3 million new infections were recorded in patients under age Countless deaths in the U. During this time the U. These individuals were legally prohibited from working in healthcare, donating blood, entering the country on a travel visa, or emigrating. Meanwhile, research scientists were gaining ground.

Other drugs went into trial, with mixed success. A drug known as ACTG showed particular promise in mother-to-infant transmissions, and a drug called Saquinavir was approved by the FDA in record time. Viramune followed these, further expanding treatment options for HIV-positive patients.

Combination therapy approaches developed in were especially effective, and by a global standard of care had been adopted. Public policy during this period took a brave step socially. The condom, rarely ever spoken of in polite company and used even less, became less taboo and more widely used than ever before.

Condom sales took off in developed countries, quadrupling in some areas. In most of Africa, public opinion was backed by the leadership of African politicians who refused to acknowledge the existence of sex between men, let alone a health crisis that affected a nation's homosexual population.

In many countries, homosexuality was and still is a criminal act; it was not uncommon for early AIDS activists to end up in jail. In countries where the gay social network operated underground, reaching the population with lifesaving education and antiretrovirals was near impossible. When the first few cases of AIDS emerged, people believed it was only contracted by men who had sex with men. The number of cases continued to grow as the CDC refined their case definition, and scientists learned more about the condition.

In , Dr. Bathhouses across the country closed due to sexual activity and the associated risk. Some schools also barred children with HIV from attending. President Barack Obama later lifted this ban in In , researchers calculated that this resistance accounted for 4, to 9, avoidable transmissions. A study looked at people in New York City who used injectable drugs and had been admitted to a drug detoxification program. The researchers concluded that the legalization of syringe exchange programs helped reduce HIV prevalence among this group from 50 percent in to 17 percent in Friend and actress Elizabeth Taylor was the national chairperson until her death in In , Princess Diana also made international headlines after she shook hands with an HIV-positive man.

This came amidst criticism that government funding was inadequate and not enough had been done to find a treatment or cure. Scientists also developed treatments to reduce transmission during pregnancy. This center later opened in This regimen requires people with HIV to take a combination of at least three medications daily.

And a study in in the medical journal, Lancet , showed that an anti-viral treatment effectively halted the spread of HIV. Scientists have traced the origin of HIV back to chimpanzees and simian immunodeficiency virus SIV , an HIV-like virus that attacks the immune system of monkeys and apes. Chimps, the scientist later discovered, hunt and eat two smaller species of monkeys—red-capped mangabeys and greater spot-nosed monkeys—that carry and infect the chimps with two strains of SIV. These two strains likely combined to form SIVcpz, which can spread between chimpanzees and humans.

Researchers believe the first transmission of SIV to HIV in humans that then led to the global pandemic occurred in in Kinshasa, the capital and largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The virus spread may have spread from Kinshasa along infrastructure routes roads, railways, and rivers via migrants and the sex trade.

International travel from the United States helped the virus spread across the rest of the globe. In , the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC published a report about five previously healthy homosexual men becoming infected with Pneumocystis pneumonia , which is caused by the normally harmless fungus Pneumocystis jirovecii. This type of pneumonia, the CDC noted, almost never affects people with uncompromised immune systems.

The following year, The New York Times published an alarming article about the new immune system disorder, which, by that time, had affected people, killing of them. Because the disease appeared to affect mostly homosexual men, officials initially called it gay-related immune deficiency, or GRID. The tests can be done on blood, saliva, or urine, though the blood tests detect HIV sooner after exposure due to higher levels of antibodies.

By the end of , there were more than 20, reported cases of AIDS, with at least one case in every region of the world. The regimes work by preventing the virus from multiplying, giving the immune system a chance to recover and fight off infections and HIV-related cancers.