There are those who can "cure" themselves of HIV.
How does it happen?
1:30
(CNN) -
On June 5, 1981, a curious report appeared in the weekly public health summary of the Center for Disease Control (CDC): Five young gay men in Los Angeles were diagnosed with an unusual lung infection known as pneumonia. by Pneumocystis carinii (PCP), and two of them died.
It was the first time that acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) - the devastating advanced stage of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection that would claim the lives of more than 32 million people worldwide - was reported in the United States. United.
Deotis McMather appears asleep in the bed of ward 5B of the San Francisco General Hospital, the first AIDS hospital unit in the country.
After being diagnosed with AIDS, he returned to his apartment, where all his belongings had been thrown into the street.
Days after the initial report hit the newspapers, the CDC learned of many more such cases in gay men.
These men had not only PCP, but also other secondary infections, including a rare and aggressive cancer known as Kaposi's sarcoma (KS).
About a month after that first report, the
CDC's
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
counted 26 gay men from New York and California with those diagnoses, a number that would increase exponentially.
Saturday, June 5, marked the 40th anniversary of the first AIDS cases registered in the country.
Since then, more than 700,000 people have died in the US from the disease, and although medical advances have dramatically changed the prognosis for patients with HIV / AIDS, there is still no cure.
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US President Joe Biden issued a statement commemorating the anniversary and highlighting the work done by the US to combat the disease in his country and around the world.
He said he asked Congress for $ 670 million to fight new HIV cases by increasing treatment, expanding the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis and ensuring equitable access to treatment.
"In honor of all of us who have lost and all of those living with the virus - and the dedicated caregivers, advocates and loved ones who have helped carry the burden of this crisis - we must rededicate ourselves to reducing HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths, "the president said in the statement.
"We must continue to empower researchers, scientists and healthcare providers to ensure equitable access to prevention, care and treatment in all communities, particularly for communities of color and the LGBTQ + community."
Here's a look at how the AIDS epidemic unfolded.
Why is there still no vaccine against HIV?
1:03
Activists spurred initial AIDS response
The early years of the AIDS epidemic were an uncertain and disturbing time.
LGBTQ communities lost friends and loved ones to illness, one after another, without knowing how or why.
At the same time, it seemed that society had ignored it.
"Can you imagine what it would be like if you had lost 20 of your friends in the last 18 months?" Said Larry Kramer, a famous AIDS activist and co-founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, in a 1983 interview with the "Today" show. ".
"There is no cause, there is no cure, people are in hospitals. It is a very angry community."
Gary Walsch, living with AIDS, leans on the shoulder of a friend before a candlelight vigil in San Francisco in 1983. The vigil was held to draw attention to the AIDS crisis affecting the gay community.
President Ronald Reagan's administration paid little attention to the epidemic, and it was four years before Reagan made a public mention of AIDS.
Exchanges between Reagan's press secretary and journalists in 1982 and 1983 indicate that senior officials in the country and society at large viewed the disease as a joke rather than a matter of great concern.
This was due to the perception of AIDS as a "gay plague", a disease believed to be linked to the lifestyles and behaviors of homosexual men, although cases had also been reported in women, children, people with hemophilia and people who they injected drugs.
In an interview recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, AIDS researcher Alexandra Levine spoke of the "horror of seeing society as a whole turn its back on this suffering, the horror of seeing many of my own colleagues refuse to help, they refused to care, they refused to act like the professionals they were supposed to be. "
Protesters in New York in 1987 hold hands during a moment of silence as they demand more government action in the fight against AIDS.
(Sara Krulwich / The New York Times)
As politicians and government entities were slow to act, activists took matters into their own hands, doing what they could to combat homophobia and stigma and make sure their communities received the public health information they needed.
Among those efforts is the 1982 booklet "How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach."
Created by Michael Callen and Richard Berkowitz, it was one of the first times gay men were advised to use condoms during sex with other men, according to an exhibit from the National Library of Medicine.
Although both are considered pioneers of safe sex, many in the gay community at the time criticized their work as "negative sex."
For their part, black gay and lesbian organizations defended themselves with poster campaigns against the misconception that AIDS primarily affects white gay men.
What is HIV / AIDS and how is it transmitted?
Here are some basic facts and chronology of the fight against the virus
Scientists grappled with understanding AIDS
In the early 1980s, HIV / AIDS was considered a death sentence.
Scientists and doctors grappled with understanding the causes of the disease and its spread, making the process of finding a treatment even more difficult.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who became director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the height of the AIDS epidemic, refers to that period in his career as the "dark years."
"I went from being a person who cared for patients with other illnesses and developed appropriate cures and therapies for them in the early part of my career, to caring for people who were inevitably going to die every day, usually in a short period," he said. in a recent interview with CNN.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks with his team about HIV / AIDS during a meeting in 1990. (George Tames / The New York Times)
It was an experience shared by many clinicians who cared for early AIDS patients: feeling that there was nothing they could do to stop the suffering.
"For a while, you were really putting bandages on the bleeds," Fauci added.
In the absence of viable treatments, Gerald Friedland, who worked on early AIDS cases at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, recalled how he focused on empathy.
"The onslaught of death and agony for young men and women went beyond 'usual professional commitments' and was terribly harsh," he said in an interview recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"But I learned to be adept at giving people a 'decent death.'
Therapies arrived in the late 1980s and 1990s
Things began to change in the late 1980s and 1990s, when more effective therapies emerged that transformed what living with HIV meant for a person.
On March 19, 1987, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an antiretroviral drug known as AZT to treat HIV infection.
That year there was also another important change.
Following pressure from activists fighting for the survival of their community, the FDA enacted a new regulation on clinical drug trials, allowing patients to access experimental therapies that could save their lives without having to wait years for them. official agency approval.
Princess Diana visited AIDS patients in a Rio de Janeiro hospital on April 25, 1991. Her advocacy and compassion for HIV / AIDS patients helped destigmatize the disease and change public perception.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, public perception of HIV / AIDS also began to change, thanks in part to high-level activists and celebrities.
One such activist was Ryan White, an Indiana teenager who contracted AIDS in 1984 from contaminated needles while receiving treatment for hemophilia.
Following his diagnosis, he was discriminated against in his community, and even denied entry to his high school.
When White spoke publicly of his experiences and his family challenged his treatment in court, he became one of the first public faces of the disease.
Princess Diana also contributed to breaking down the stigmas and myths surrounding the disease, as she was photographed visiting HIV / AIDS patients in hospital wards and shaking hands without gloves.
And in 1991, NBA star Earvin "Magic" Johnson revealed that he had been diagnosed with HIV - his identity as a straight, black male helped prove that anyone could get the disease.
Stigma and discrimination, the greatest challenges to combat HIV / AIDS
Basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson is photographed at a Los Angeles Lakers game on November 17, 1991, shortly after announcing that he had HIV.
Another scientific breakthrough came in 1996, when the FDA approved the first protease inhibitors.
That development launched what is known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), turning HIV / AIDS from a fatal diagnosis to a controllable condition.
"We are now giving people living with HIV drugs that not only save their lives and essentially give them a normal life, but they can be prevented from infecting other people," Fauci told CNN on June 1.
Richard Chaisson, a physician who helped lead the fight against AIDS at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in the late 1980s and 1990s, described the sentiment to the New England Journal of Medicine.
"Despair turned into hope. Hope turned into belief, and belief turned into joy," he recalled.
"Many patients returned home from the ship of the damned and returned to almost normal lives."
Visitors and volunteers walk on the 21,000-panel AIDS commemorative quilt on October 10, 1992 in Washington.
(AP Photo / Shayna Brennan)
The most recent
In 2010, researchers announced another exciting breakthrough: A study found that taking a daily dose of HIV drugs reduced the risk of infection for men who had sex with other men.
In 2012, the FDA approved the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for adults at high risk of infection, one of the most important milestones in the epidemic.
Although new treatments for HIV / AIDS have made diagnosis more manageable and even help prevent infection, public health challenges remain.
About 1.2 million people in the United States were living with HIV at the end of 2018, according to the CDC.
There are disparities in access to treatment, and Black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately affected by HIV.
Resistance to HIV / AIDS drugs has also become increasingly common.
Some researchers and doctors began to divert their attention and efforts elsewhere after the aftermath of the early years, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.
And even though the United States set itself the goal of finding an HIV vaccine within 10 years in 1997, four decades later there is still no vaccine and no cure.
HIV / AIDS / AIDS