Fear combined with lack of knowledge ended up socially segregating HIV-infected patients. In order to try to contain intolerance, it was decided in October 1987 during the World Health Assembly to establish the first of December as the date for make people aware of the subject, thus combating the effects caused by prejudice, as well as informing the population about the forms of contagion and prevention.
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AIDS, along with other diseases, is part of an outbreak of epidemics that throughout world history has haunted the population. Leprosy, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Yellow Fever, Typhus, Black Death, Cholera, Measles, Ebola, Avian Influenza, H1N1 Influenza are some of the diseases that most terrified civilizations. Usually these evils are accompanied by lack of knowledge, ignorance, fear, panic, intolerance, prejudice and social exclusion. If we analyze each period of our history, it is common for one of these diseases to be mentioned.
HIV/AIDS is a relatively recent disease, believed to have been discovered by scientists in the 1970s, a period in which hippie and student movements professed the right to freedom sexual. The motto Sex, Drugs and Rock` n roll was extremely widespread from the 1960s onwards. As it is a silent disease that often remains without emitting any sign for several years, HIV has found the ideal scenario to quickly become an epidemic.
Experts guarantee that the origin of the virus is on the African continent, and that monkeys would be its incubators. This conclusion was reached by the discovery that these primates have a virus very similar to HIV, the SIVcpz (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus). The contagion would have happened during chimpanzee hunting expeditions, the animal's blood in contact with the hunter would have infected him. With the increased connection between Africa and other continents, the virus would have spread.
Concern about the HIV virus arose in 1981 with the increased incidence of Kaposi's sarcoma, a type of cancer, and cases of pneumonia in young people. At first it was believed that the disease was related to the lifestyle of the infected person, there was a lack of knowledge about its origins, which led society to believe that it was an illness restricted to homosexuals and drug users intravenous. But with the discovery of cases of hemophiliacs and infected newborns in 1982, concern increased and risk groups expanded.
The first cases were discovered in the cities of Los Angeles and New York. The strange illness that affected the immune system had the medical community baffled. The time for the appearance of the first signs of the disease can take from eight to eleven years, there are cases of infected people who never showed their symptoms. Despite the long time it takes to manifest itself, the virus can be detected in the patient's blood in the first weeks after infection.
Even after thirty years of the discovery of the virus, AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, also called AIDS) is among the deadliest diseases in the world. It is estimated that since the recognition of the first cases, the disease would have already caused the death of more than forty-nine million infected, studies indicate that in the world there are thirty-five million seropositive. But this number can be much more alarming due to the fact that many infected people are unaware of their situation.
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Despite high numbers of people with the virus, the spread of HIV has been slowing since the 1980s. Thanks to awareness campaigns that have been gaining momentum over the years, AIDS has become a hot topic. widely discussed and consequently the population is more aware of its forms of contagion and prevention.
The creation of Serological Guidance and Support Centers and the free serological tests are part of some government measures to help seropositive patients. In addition, those infected have full medical support, including psychological support, which makes Brazil a world reference in combating the disease. Currently, there are 104 registered laboratories, aimed at monitoring the clinical evolution of HIV-infected individuals.
The red bow became the symbol of the fight against AIDS and the support of infected patients. It was created in New York by a group of art professionals as a way of honoring friends or family members who had suffered from the disease. Symbol of solidarity and union, the red bow was used publicly for the first time by actor Jeremy Irons at the Tony Awards in 1991.
In Brazil, the disease gained repercussions through celebrities who publicly assumed they were carriers of the virus. One of the first artists to declare their case to the media was the singer Cazuza. Since his declaration, several other artists in the world and in Brazil have succumbed to the disease, mainly in the last years of the 1980s and in the beginning of the 1990s.
Lorena Castro Alves
Graduated in History and Pedagogy
