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'I was told I had between three and nine months to live'

Alpa Patel & Olivia Demetriades
BBC News, London
BBC A man wearing a trilby hat, linen green short-sleeved shirt and grey waistcoat, smiling at the camera. BBC
HIV activist Jonathan Blake was one of the first people to be diagnosed with HIV

"I was told I had a virus with no cure and between three and nine months to live."

HIV activist Jonathan Blake believes he was one of, if not the first person to be diagnosed in Britain with human immunodeficiency virus, known as HIV, when he was aged 33.

"I was diagnosed in October 1982 at the Middlesex Hospital. It was incredibly winding."

He was diagnosed so early in the UK Aids epidemic that he was named Patient L1 at the hospital, and his story was featured in the 2014 film Pride.

Recalling the early days of diagnosis, he told BBC London "every single lymph node in my body had just erupted".

After undergoing tests in hospital, he was kept in a side ward for two days.

Jonathan, who is now 76, said he was told by doctors he would be given "palliative care when the time comes" - to which he thought: "I'm 33, do I really want to hear about palliative care":[]}