September Sees Rise In British A.I.D.S. Cases (Press, 1 November 1983)
This is a Generative AI summary of this newspaper article. It may contain errors or omissions. Please note that the language in the summary is reflective of the original article and the societal attitudes of the time in which it was written.
Summary: September Sees Rise In British A.I.D.S. Cases (Press, 1 November 1983)
On 1 November 1983, a report by the Public Health Laboratory published in the British Medical Journal revealed a significant rise in the number of reported cases of A.I.D.S. (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) in Britain, which increased from 16 to 24 in September, marking a 50 per cent rise. Among the eight new cases reported, there were three fatalities. Notably, only one of the deceased was a homosexual man, while the other two deaths involved a man with haemophilia who reportedly received a blood-clotting agent tainted with blood from an A.I.D.S.-infected donor from the United States, and a woman with multiple sexual partners. The report indicated that four of the five homosexual men who had been diagnosed in September had sexual contact with individuals from the United States, while the fifth had contact with a person from the Caribbean. The Public Health Laboratory was also investigating several other suspected cases. A.I.D.S. is characterised by the deterioration of the body’s immune system, leading to increased vulnerability to various illnesses, including pneumonia, intestinal disorders, and particular cancers. Initially linked to homosexual men and drug users in the United States, where the disease first emerged in 1980, A.I.D.S. has also affected women, including a nun who left her order to engage with sex workers in the Caribbean. At that point in time, the disease had claimed a total of 10 lives in Britain, with experts suggesting that it had likely been introduced to the country by homosexual men returning from holidays in regions such as the United States and the Caribbean.
Important Information
The text on this page is created, in the most part, using Generative AI and so may contain errors or omissions. It is supplied to you without guarantee or warranty of correctness. If you find an error or would like to make a content suggestion please get in contact
The text on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand