Arvid Noe

Who was Arvid Noe?

Arvid Darre Noe is the alias of a sailor who is the first named person known to have contracted HIV and who later died from AIDS. He is the second earliest person confirmed to have died from AIDS, after Robert Rayford, a teenager from St. Louis, Missouri, who died in May 1969. However, the HIV virus was identified in blood and tissue samples of victims who died in western Africa as early as 1959, though the immediate cause of death was not identified at the time.

The true identity of Arvid Noe is officially unknown and names and places of his life may have been changed to help conceal his identity. But the real name is probably Arne Roed, as a report on German Spiegel TV suggests.