Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a deadly disease caused by
HIV, a viral STD. AIDS causes a person'
s immune system to effectively
die, thereby leaving the person helpless to
whatever other diseases they
may be afflicted by from that point onward. AIDS is believed to have originated in the 1920s, when
people in what is now the Republic of Congo hunted down and ate chimpanzees, being blissfully aware that they contained the virus. Thus, a monster was born; the disease spread to humans, and panic ensued...well, not until about sixty years later, but you get the idea.
AIDS is typically managed by regularly doing the healthy equivalent of a drug cocktail in order to supplement the body's lack of an immune system. But wait...doesn't that sound expensive? That's because it is; there was a drug that was proven to be very effective at managing it, but it was (
literally) made 500x more expensive by a man who is now rotting in prison for his crimes against humanity.
AIDS is technically incurable, although some
people who suffer from it have reported that it can go into remission if you're lucky.
AIDS wasn't really recognized until the 1980s, when it cropped up in the United States. Since then, it has spread around the
world to many
people, including some celebrities such as
Charlie Sheen and Magic Johnson. Johnson later became famous for spreading awareness of the virus. Amazingly, he is still alive nearly thirty years after finding out that he had the disease.