Grethe Rask

Dr. Margrethe (Grethe) P. Rask (1930 – 1977), a Danish physician and surgeon, was the first non-African known to have died from AIDS.

Born in 1930 in Danish city of Thisted, Dr. Rask practiced medicine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as Zaire) from 1972 to 1977, first at a small local hospital in the Zairian town of Abumombazi, and then at the Danish Red Cross Hospital in Kinshasa. She was likely first exposed to HIV during her time in Abumombazi. Her friend and colleague, Ib Bygbjerg (a physician specializing in communicable diseases), wrote in a 1983 letter to The Lancet that “while working as a surgeon under primitive conditions, she [Rask] must have been heavily exposed to blood and excretions of Africans patients.”

By 1976, Rask had begun to suffer from diarrhea, swollen lymph nodes, weight loss, and fatigue. When she finally returned to Denmark in July 1977, she had contracted a number of opportunistic infections such as Staphylococcus aureus (staph infection), Candidiasis (yeast infection), and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (a fungal infection of the lungs). Tests at Copenhagen's Rigshospitalet revealed that Dr. Rask had a nearly non-existent T-cell count, leading to a severely depressed immune system. She died of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia on December 12, 1977. At the time, the doctors treating Rask were at a loss to explain her disease progression, which in retrospect, would come to be seen as the first case of AIDS recorded outside of Africa.

Further Reading

Shilts, Randy, And The Band Played On, St. Martin's Press, 1987

Bygbjerg, I. C., AIDS in a Danish Surgeon (Zaire, 1976), The Lancet, 23 April 1983