In the beginning

In the beginning, the AIDS epidemic struck like a thief in the night—suddenly, terrifyingly, and deadly. At first, there were a few cases of a rare malignancy Kaposi’s sarcoma; then came the appearance of Pneumocystis pneumonia-, and finally a plethora of opportunistic infections including systemic candidiasis, cryptococcal meningitis, and Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare—all rare diseases associated with this new mysterious, unknown, and unnamed spectre.