Saint Nate has an excellent post...

about World AIDS Day:

Date of first officially recognized AIDS case in the USA: June 5, 1981

Number of people AIDS has killed worldwide since then: More than 20 million

Date of the first World AIDS Day: December 1, 1988

Number of known AIDS deaths in the United States that year: 4,855

Number in 2002:16,371

Total cumulative number of reported AIDS deaths in the USA by December 2002: 501,669

Please read the whole thing. (This looks like Grand Rounds material to me...)