A ‘Pseudo-AIDS' Syndrome following from Fear of AIDS

Abstract

We report two cases showing psychiatric symptoms associated with a fear of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). There have now been over 42 cases of AIDS in the United Kingdom (Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, 1984) since the first case appeared in December 1981, a year after the syndrome was first identified in the United States of America. It was the BBC television programme “Death in the Village” which brought the risks home to many UK homosexual men in mid-1983. Following the programme, the London Gay Switchboard received a high level of telephone calls from men who were afraid that they had AIDS (London Gay Switchboard, 1984).