HIV/AIDS

A chronic, potentially life-threatening infection caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which attacks CD4 immune cells and, left untreated, progressively weakens the immune system until the body can no longer fight ordinary infections, a late stage called acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report first described the underlying condition on June 5, 1981, in a cluster of Pneumocystis pneumonia cases among previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. In the disease's first year, before its cause was known, it was sometimes labeled gay-related immune deficiency (GRID), a name replaced in 1982 once cases were recognized in other groups entirely; the early association fed discrimination against gay men that the historical record documents factually rather than as a footnote to be smoothed over. The virus itself was isolated in 1983 and 1984, a discovery this atlas carries separately as its own contested episode. Antiretroviral therapy, developed from the late 1980s onward, has transformed HIV from a near-uniformly fatal diagnosis into a manageable chronic condition for patients with reliable access to treatment; access remains globally uneven.