When we think of those early battles against HIV and AIDS, one of the groundbreaking moments was the discovery of AZT – an antiretroviral which could tackle HIV at a time when there seemed no answer.
Marty explains: “In the United States the first indications that we had a new syndrome, which eventually became known as HIV AIDS, was in 1981 when Michael Botley reported on a small group of his patients who were young white males who had pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, which prior to that time had only been seen in very aged men who were close to death. The numbers increased astronomically. Within just a few months we already had several hundred people with this new syndrome and already we were observing a 50 percent fatality rate. Within a few years we had thousands of people, and maintained that 50 percent fatality rate. It was obviously a new disease which was spreading rapidly, causing a great deal of apprehension, fear, stigma. Mostly due to a lack of information and ignorance about how it was spread. It was truly a terrifying time.