1980-1992: Understanding and learning

What started off as a condition linked to gay communities in several cities around the world turned very quickly into a global epidemic that was affecting everyone and anyone – HIV and AIDS did not discriminate. Scaremongering and fear laid the foundations for stigma and discrimination around HIV that has remained to the present day.

With the spread of the disease uncontained and the number of people dying rising rapidly through the tens and hundreds of thousands, scientists and communities most affected scrambled to understand this deadly disease. It was in this time that HIV was found to cause AIDS, and all the main routes of transmission were identified.

Treatments were piloted and approved with unprecedented speed - a reflection of the shared sense of urgency - but the majority of those affected (particularly those in the developing world) did not have access to treatment and even those who did had a high chance of losing their battle with the illness.