For many people in the 1980s, AIDS was a taboo subject or something to be demonised and dismissed as a “gay plague”. They found it easier to brush the lethal syndrome under the carpet and ignore the young men losing their lives.
AIDS would cause hundreds of deaths in the UK by the end of the decade and it has now claimed the lives of nearly 33 million worldwide.
It took the campaigning of high-profile figures such as Princess Diana to raise awareness of the tragedy. The death of iconic Queen singer Freddie Mercury in 1991 due to complications from AIDS, aged 45, also brought the disease into sharp focus.
And when EastEnders’ Mark Fowler, played by Todd Carty, revealed he had HIV – which can lead to AIDS – the same year, the storyline had a