On Jun. 5, 1981, Dr. Michael Gottlieb and colleagues of University of California at Los Angeles reported a case of Pneumocystis Pneumonia, the first case of AIDS. The results appeared in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (vol. 30, pp. 250-52), a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publication. This was the first article about AIDS in the medical literature.

Local clinicians and the Epidemic intelligence Service (EIS) Officer stationed at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, prepared the report and submitted it for MMWR publication in early May 1981. Before publication, MMWR editorial staff sent the submission to CDC experts in parasitic and sexually transmitted diseases. The editorial note that accompanied the published report stated that the case histories suggested a “cellular-immune dysfunction related to a common exposure” and a “disease acquired through sexual contact.” The report prompted additional case reports from New York City, San Francisco, and other cities.

At about the same time, CDC’s investigation drug unit, the sole distributor of pentamidine, the
therapy for PCP, began to receive requests for the drug from physicians also to treat young men. In June 1981, CDC developed an investigative team to identify risk factors and to develop a case definition for national surveillance. Within 18 months, epidemiologists conducted studies and prepared MMWR reports that identified all of the major risks factors for acquired immnodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In March 1983, CDC issued recommendations for prevention of sexual, drug-related, and occupational transmission based on these early epidemiologic studies and before the cause of the new, unexplained illness was known.