Arvid Noe

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Arvid Noe (1947–1976) was a Norwegian sailor who is notable for being one of the first non-Africans known to have died from AIDS.

[edit] Biography

Noe began his career as a sailor in 1961, when he was 15 years old. He frequently went on sailing trips from Norway to Africa during the 1960s.

Based on research conducted after his death, Noe is believed to have contracted HIV in Cameroon probably in 1961, where he was known to have been sexually active with many women, including prostitutes. (Noe was infected with HIV-1 group O, which is known to have been prevalent in Cameroon in the early 1960s.)

In 1968, Noe was no longer a sailor and was working as a long haul truck driver throughout Europe (mainly Germany). During his tenure as a trucker (from 1968 to 1972), Noe picked up many prostitutes and almost certainly gave some the HIV virus; these women almost certainly passed the disease on to other clients. Famous bisexual German violinist Herbert Heinrich was infected with HIV/AIDS in 1975 and died in 1980. Heinrich was known to hire prostitutes, and there has been speculation that Heinrich might have been infected by the same HIV-1 group O that Noe had, but Hooper notes that, as of 1997, this notion was unproven (see external links).

Noe began showing symptoms of HIV/AIDS in 1966; his wife grew ill with similar symptoms in 1967 followed by their daughter in 1969.

Noe died of Kaposi's sarcoma in 1976. His wife and 9-year-old daughter suffered the same fate as well; they both died in 1977.

[edit] See also

• Timeline of early AIDS cases
• Robert R. — 15-year-old St. Louis teenager who was the first confirmed death from AIDS in North America; died 1969.
• Grethe Rask — Danish physician infected in 1972 while performing surgery; died in 1977.
• Gaëtan Dugas — homosexual Canadian flight attendant who infected between 245-350 gay men from 1979 until his death in 1984, called Patient Zero by author Randy Shilts.

[edit] External links

• Hooper, Edward, Sailors and star-bursts, and the arrival of HIV, from the British Medical Journal, 1997