AIDS certainly has the attention of many. Its pandemic levels throughout the world has demanded the attention of medical researchers for decades as patients cry for quicker and better treatment. The AIDS timeline stretches as far back as the 1950s and has impacted the lives of millions since that time.



In the year of 1958, the disease known as AIDS struck its first victim. A man by the name of David Carr began to become very ill, expressing mysterious symptoms such as pneumocystis carinii. The following year, he died. The disease was still unknown at that point, and tissue samples from Carr showed to be HIV positive when tested in 1990.

A man in the Congo proved to be positive for two of six of the genes that make up the AIDS disease in 1959. His blood was preserved and later tested. While the first case of AIDS in America occurred in 1959. A Haitian man living in New York City died of pneumocystis carinii, a common and serious secondary illness faced by those fighting the AIDS battle. A post-mortem examination led physicians to believe that this Haitian immigrant had also dies from AIDS.

1969 was the next time that AIDS would show itself in America. A teenager in St. Louis was found to have died of an illness that left his doctors clueless. In 1987, tests confirmed that the boy had indeed died of AIDS.

The continent of Africa began to show signs of the disease in 1975 and in the years that followed others throughout the world were infected, many of whom could trace their exposure back to Africa. For example, in 1976, a Norwegian sailor died of AIDS that he likely contracted in Africa in the 1960's.

In 1977 a man from Denmark and a woman from San Francisco were found to be infected with the disease, with both cases coming from the African continent. The woman in San Francisco had given birth to three children who also carried the disease.

HIV-2 was first diagnosed in 1978, occurring in a Portuguese man who claimed he probably got infected in Guinea-Bissau.

1980 was an especially dark year for the spread of the AIDS virus. A man tagged with the moniker of "Patient Zero", because of the wide spread infections he passed along, Gaetan Dugas traveled to the bathhouses of New York and likely introduced the disease to America in a major way. Think about how one person can infect so many...this is one of the real tragedies of this disease.

In 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo, a well known researcher in the field, is recognized with having discovered that a virus was the actual cause of the disease. This one fact helped to target research so that it was more effective. Before his discovery, HIV and AIDS was thought to be a disease of homosexuals resulting from many of the activities of that community. Dr. Gallo's discovery changed that belief.

Dr. Gallo continued to push the advances of AIDS research in the medical community and in 1996 he ultimately discovered that a compound known as chemokines can be helpful in slowing the progression of the disease. This singular advance proved extremely beneficial to AIDS patients everywhere.

Understanding the historical significance in the timeline of AIDS helps us to better understand from where we have come and how much farther we have to go in conquering this beast of a disease.