Dispatches from the AIDS Pandemic is a unique firsthand account from three public health leaders of CDC's early response to AIDS. Drawing in part on interviews from the CDC's AIDS oral history project, the authors trace the evolution of AIDS from newly recognized disease to pandemic. The first section outlines the earliest days of the epidemic within the United States and the initial prevention strategies. The second section expands the borders of the response to Africa and Thailand, where CDC conducted its first international work on AIDS. The final section closes with an overview of the scientific and public health advancements that followed and the historic community activism that spurred essential funding and partnerships for the development of life-saving interventions.

Authentic and insightful, Dispatches from the AIDS Pandemic provides an authoritative account of an epidemic and its central role in the expansion of global public health.