Tributes for David Patient – one of the longest surviving HIV/AIDS patients and activists – have been rolling in after his death at the weekend.
Patient had been diagnosed with what was then known as GRIDS (gay-related immune deficiency) on March 13, 1983.
He said on his
that, based on where his immune system had been at that time, his doctors believed he had been infected back in the late 1970s.
His partner Neil Orr announced the news in a Facebook post on Saturday.
Orr posted: "I regret to inform you than David Patient left us at 10.30pm on the September 22, 2017. He developed pneumonia after surgery, and his heart stopped."
He said: “(Patient) didn’t die from AIDS: his viral load was undetectable, and his CD4 count over 1200, just a week ago.
The superbugs didn’t get him either – this was something else.
He died because his body was just so tired from one operation after the next.”
Orr said that Patient had always told him that AIDS would not have killed him.
“He said: ‘I’ll die of a heart attack.’ And he did. He lived his life on his own terms ... He made a difference in this world.”
Many took to the social media platform to share messages of condolence: