The first case of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Peru was diagnosed in 1983; the patient was a gay man who had lived in the United States (U.S.) for several years, returning to Peru in 1982. Although the physicians at the public hospital where the patient was admitted had not yet seen this illness, they knew about AIDS in the U.S. and realized that AIDS and their patient's illness were one and the same. Although in hindsight the inevitability of additional cases is clear, at that point many believed that the epidemic was a problem isolated to the U.S. that would not affect Peru on a large scale. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008.