Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1983. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - September 17, 1983
The case indicates that AIDS was present in Haiti before it appeared among homosexuals in the United States, leading to its recognition as a new disease, Dr. D. B. Rose and Dr. J. S. Keystone of Toronto General Hospital's tropical disease unit, wrote in a letter in the current issue of The Lancet, a weekly British medical journal.
AIDS is characterized by severe damage to the immune system, making its victims susceptible to a wide variety of uncommon infections and a rare type of cancer. Most of the 1,700 cases reported this year in the United States have been among men with frequent and varied homosexual partners. The disease has also been linked to intravenous drug users, Haitians and hemophiliacs.
The former nun spent more than 30 years in Haiti, leaving her order in 1972 to work in Port-au-Prince rehabilitating prostitutes. She had one sexual contact in her years in Haiti, the doctors said, and returned to Canada in 1979.
She fell ill and died in 1981, suffering several diseases that her body was unable to resist. When the link between AIDS and Haiti became known, the doctors said they recognized that she had been an AIDS victim.
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