More than 40 years have passed since five patients in California developed symptoms of a mysterious disease. The virus that causes AIDS was identified a few years later, and a blood test for HIV became available in 1985.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, contracting HIV was practically a death sentence. Nothing seemed to stop the virus from attacking a patient's immune system and progressing into AIDS. And while there are now treatments that can render the virus undetectable in a patient's bloodstream, a cure for HIV has been elusive.
WVXU's Cincinnati Edition explored the history of AIDS and the latest on treatments, with one of the featured experts being Carl Fichtenbaum, MD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the UC College of Medicine.
