Remembering the terror of AIDS

In June 1981, the US Centre For Disease Control reported the deaths of five young gay men, from a rare form of pneumonia. Around the same time, Kaposi’s sarcoma, a cancer usually seen only in the very old, started to claim the lives of a disproportionate number of gay people. By 1983, the numbers of deaths had become so large that Horizon, the BBC science programme, broadcast a documentary about them, called “Killer in the Village”. I share that childhood memory only to recall how terrifying those early years of the Aids crisis were, before the aetiology of the disease was known, before the virus was identified, before effective therapies were developed; I suspect those years have cast a shadow over every gay man of my generation, whether they fell ill or not, whether they tested positive or not, whether or not they’ve ever taken the test. Thank God HIV was found responsible for the disease. Better a virus, isolated under a microscope, a tractable drug target, than some form of cosmic retribution: though not everyone would agree with that, of course.

The question in those early years was whether or not the infection would be confined to gay people. What would have happened, had that turned out to be the case? A question, 30 years later, I still prefer not to ponder. By 1987, though, the risk to the general population was clear, and one of the most remarkable campaigns seen in post-war Britain was launched. I suspect you’ll remember the government’s Don’t Die Of Ignorance campaign, the tombstone with “AIDS” chiselled onto it, John Hurt’s terrifying voiceover. A leaflet was delivered to every house in the land, warning people to avoid unprotected sex. 

Edited from an article by Graeme Archer published in The Telegraph on 2 December 2011