HIV Testing Week: Shocking ads show the fear of living with HIV and AIDS in the 80s

People are being encouraged to get checked out during National HIV Testing Week which runs until 26 November.

HIV and AIDs have slowly shook off the stigma of being a ‘death sentence’, following decades of activism and protests by the LGBT communities and allies.

But in the 1980s, when the epidemic struck and doctors were falling to save young people from dying, those living with the disease were overlooked and even isolated by the authorities they turned to for the help they so desperately required.

Instead of information on help, treatment and support, official government campaigns employed shock tactics to scare people into using condoms.
Here are just a few of the posters:

The American Indian Health Care Association released this image in 1989 to warn that, untreated, AIDS can cause a slow and painful death.


--Roluyo Hammed and Rabiu Wasiu contributed reporting.