Invisible KILLER

How the AIDS epidemic caused a climate of fear across the UK

- HANNAH DAVIES, IAN MACEWAN, STEVEN PERKINS.

NEW FACTUAL AIDS: The Unheard Tapes Monday, 9.30pm (times vary), BBC2 (box set, BBC iPlayer)

When the AIDS epidemic reached the UK in the early 1980s, the vast majority of AIDS patients were gay men, and the prevailing climate of homophobia created a culture of fear and stigma around this new disease that few understood.

At the time, reports on the epidemic rarely featured voices from within the gay community, but new three-part documentary AIDS: The Unheard Tapes uses interviews with HIV-positive gay men, conducted by researchers in the 80s and 90s and archived at the British Library, to tell the history of HIV and AIDS in the UK as it has never been heard before.

VITAL TESTIMONY