With timeless hits like We Are the Champions, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Another One Bites the Dust, Queen’s place in the history of rock is undeniable.? Freddie Mercury, Queen’s co-founder and lead singer, was noted for his charisma, his vocal range, and his original voice.? For an individual who had a great love of live performance and publicity, he was reluctant to share details about his personal life, keeping both his ethnicity (Indian) and his sexual orientation (gay) secret.? On November 23rd, 1991, Freddie Mercury announced that he had been HIV positive for some time.? The next day, he died from bronchopneumonia induced by AIDS, at the age of 45.

Today would have been Freddie Mercury’s 62nd birthday. While we still have yet to find a cure for HIV, our knowledge of the illness – and our ability to treat and manage it – has improved dramatically in the last 20 years. Nonetheless, over a million Americans are still infected with HIV, including nearly 300,000 who are unaware of their HIV infection.

Even with such a large number of people infected, AIDS is still mysterious, frightening, and often misunderstood to the general public. AIDS is actually a disease that represents the final stages of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. HIV is an incurable virus that attacks and destroys cells in the immune system. With a weakened immune system, a person becomes less able to fight off infections, increasing the likelihood that the infected individual will fall ill.

Eventually, untreated HIV leads to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, a progression that can take from several months to more than ten years. Most people who die of AIDS do so from one of 26 opportunistic infections that only affect individuals whose immune system is compromised. While there is no cure HIV, the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy can slow the progression to full-blown AIDS, and has helped to reduce the number of AIDS-related deaths significantly.

After Freddie Mercury’s death, the remaining members of Queen founded The Mercury Phoenix Trust, which has since raised millions of dollars for AIDS charities. Today, HIV-positive Americans are living longer, healthier lives, but this does not mean that we can be complacent. Living with HIV is still living with a disease that, if not properly controlled, can take a life prematurely, just as it did Freddie Mercury’s.

Related Links:

• Video: Understanding HIV & AIDS (source: Sex Health Guru)

• HIV Prevention (source: Center for Disease Control)

• The Official Queen Website