In the United States HIV/AIDS has long been associated with homosexual males. At first it was believed that the disease had to do with the homosexual lifestyle, which led some to believe that it was a punishment for moral sins. The Reagan administration did little to assuage citizens fears, neglecting to educate the public which led to societal stigmatization of those with AIDS. Hemophiliac children who carried HIV where forced to leave school by protesting parents.

The disease originated in the jungles of Central Arica as SIV. The disease mutated from SIV to HIV most likely through contact while hunters butchered a chimpanzee sometime in the 1930’s. It is believed that the disease may have been spread during widespread Pox vaccinations that would inoculate many individuals with the same needle. The first confirmed death from AIDS was determined to happen in the Congo in 1959. From Africa the disease spread to Europe and then the rest of the world either by African immigrants carrying HIV or by Europeans working in Africa that carried HIV when they returned home. The disease remained a mystery until the summer of 1983 when the virus was finally isolated. At the time it was believed that a vaccine could be found within 2 years.

Since there was no cure and little public understanding of the disease HIV patients where stigmatized by the public and shunned by their family and friends. Slowly through public education the stigma has been reduced and more individuals have voluntarily received testing for the disease. Even today however an estimated 14.5% of individuals who carry the virus do so unknowingly, a group that causes 40% of new infections annually.

https://aidsaction.net/aa/aa33.html