The first man to die from HIV/Aids has finally been named after spending four decades known as ‘Patient Zero’.
John Eaddie, who ran a guesthouse in Bournemouth in the 1970s, in Britain died on October 29, 1981 at the Royal Brompton Hospital in Chelsea.
His cause of death was recorded as pneumocystis pneumonia – which would later be recognised a sign of HIV/Aids.
While doctors did not know what Aids was at the time,the public were aware of a mystery illness which they believed was only killing gay men.
The term Aids (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) was first used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1982.
But before the illness was given a name it had already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
John has now been named as the first person to die of Aids in the UK, an ITV investigation has revealed.
The only previous trace of John’s death was in a brief entry in the Lancet medical journal in 1981.
He was described as a ‘known homosexual’ who had travelled to Miami before getting sick in December 1981.
The entry said he was suspected to have died of the same mysterious illness sweeping the US at the time.
Old friend Tony Pinnegar told ITV how John ‘deteriorated very quickly’ after falling ill.
Tony said: ‘We thought he was going to recover, but I remember the doctor saying, “He’s not going to survive”.
‘He was just lying there unconscious, strapped up to machines. And that was it, we never spoke to him again.’
John’s friends remembered him fondly – calling him ‘warm’, ‘fun-loving’ and ‘camp’.
They also spoke out about the stigma they faced at the beginning of the epidemic, when the disease was dubbed ‘gay cancer’ or ‘the gay plague’.
Many patients would get blamed for their own illness while ashamed families would lie about what disease their loved ones had died from.
‘We went through such a terrible time in our lives,’ John’s friend Ken Dee said.
The group said they would always remember how John set up a guesthouse as a safe haven for gay men during this time.
Professor Jonathan Weber, one of the first British doctors to focus on Aids, told how 399 of the 400 gay men he studied died.
He said: ‘We had no idea what it was until 1984. The power of this virus to kill people without intervention is quite extraordinary.’
Up until now, the earliest known death from Aids was Terrance Higgins – who died in 1982.
Friends have since set up a charity in his name, promoting sexual health and supporting those living with the disease.
