~2025-34080-02: changed 'first woman' to 'one of the first women' : Grethe Rask was not the first woman to die of AIDS related causes (see Arvid Noe page, his wife died in 1976)

2025-11-17T09:59:17Z

changed 'first woman' to 'one of the first women' : Grethe Rask was not the first woman to die of AIDS related causes (see Arvid Noe page, his wife died in 1976)

New page

{{short description|Danish surgeon, one of the earliest non-Africans to die of AIDS}}
{{more medical citations needed|date=November 2017}}

{{Infobox medical person
|name = Margrethe P. Rask
|image = Grethe Rask.jpg
|birth_date = 1930
|birth_place = [[Thisted|Thisted, Denmark]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|1977|12|12|1930||df=y}}
|death_place = [[Copenhagen|Copenhagen, Denmark]]<ref name=Shilts>{{cite book|last=Shilts|first=Randy|authorlink=Randy Shilts|title=And the Band Played on: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic|url=https://archive.org/details/andbandplayedonp00shil|url-access=registration|year=1987|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]]|isbn=0-312-00994-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/andbandplayedonp00shil/page/5 5–7]}}</ref>
|death_cause = [[AIDS]]-related complications
|profession = [[Surgeon]]
|known_for = One of the first non-[[Africa]]ns to die of [[HIV]]/[[AIDS]]
|years_active = 1964–1977
}}

'''Margrethe P. Rask''' (1930 – 12 December 1977), better known as '''Grethe Rask''', was a [[Denmark|Danish]] [[physician]] and [[surgeon]] in [[Zaïre]], now the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]]. After setting up her own hospital in the village of Abumombazi in 1972,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cGNetxKuLnMC&q=Abumombazi&pg=PA4|title=And The Band Played on: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic|first=Randy|last=Shilts|date=April 9, 2000|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=9780312241353|via=Google Books}}</ref> she transferred to Danish Red Cross Hospital in [[Kinshasa]] in 1975. She returned to Denmark in 1977 after developing symptoms of an unknown infectious disease, which was later discovered to be [[HIV/AIDS|AIDS]]. In June 1981, the [[Centers for Disease Control]] recognized AIDS. Rask was one of the first non-Africans, along with [[Arvid Noe]] and [[Robert Rayford]], and one of the first women known to have died of AIDS-related causes.<ref name=":1" />

==Early years and Zaïre (1930–1974)==
Born in 1930 in the Danish town of [[Thisted]], Rask practiced medicine in [[Zaïre]] for a brief period in 1964, when she was recalled to Europe for training in stomach surgery and tropical illnesses.<ref name=":0" /> From 1972 to 1977, she practiced medicine first at a small local hospital in the Zairian town of Abumombazi, and from 1975, as the chief surgeon at the Danish Red Cross Hospital in [[Kinshasa]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Nørulf |first=Morten Mechlenborg |date=2021-03-22 |title=After hard working days she rested by the beautiful Ebola River |url=https://globalhealth.ku.dk/news/2020/after-hard-working-days-she-rested-by-the-beautiful-river-ebola/ |access-date=2022-08-21 |website=globalhealth.ku.dk |language=en}}</ref>

She was likely first exposed to [[HIV]] in 1964. Her friend and colleague, Ib Bygbjerg, a physician specializing in [[communicable diseases]], wrote in a 1983 letter to ''[[The Lancet]]'' that "while working as a surgeon under primitive conditions, she [Rask] must have been heavily exposed to blood and excretions of African patients."<ref name="Lancet-Bygbjerg">{{cite journal |last=Bygbjerg |first=I. C. |date=23 April 1983 |title=AIDS in a Danish Surgeon (Zaire, 1976) |url=https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0140-6736%2883%2991348-X |journal=[[The Lancet]] |volume=321 |issue=8338 |pages=925 |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(83)91348-X |pmid=6132237 |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=2022-06-18 |s2cid=41630235|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Illness and death (1975–1977)==
{{Self-contradictory|date=June 2025}}
Starting in late 1974, Rask suffered from symptoms of [[AIDS]],<ref name=":0" /> including [[diarrhea]], swollen [[lymph nodes]], weight loss, and fatigue. Although the symptoms receded temporarily following drug treatments in 1975,<ref name=":0" /> they later grew considerably worse.

In July 1977, following a vacation in [[South Africa]], she could no longer breathe and relied on bottled [[oxygen]].<ref name=":0" /> She flew back to Denmark, where tests at [[Copenhagen]]'s [[Rigshospitalet]] discovered she had contracted a number of [[opportunistic infection]]s, such as ''[[Staphylococcus aureus]]'' (staph infection), [[candidiasis]] (yeast infection), and [[Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia|''Pneumocystis jiroveci'' pneumonia]] (PJP, a fungal infection of the lungs formerly known as ''Pneumocystis carinii'' pneumonia).

Tests also showed that Rask had a nearly non-existent [[T-cell]] count, leading to a severely depressed immune system. At the time, the doctors treating Rask were at a loss to explain her disease progression which, in retrospect, came to be seen as one of the first cases of AIDS recorded outside [[Africa]].<ref name="Lancet-Bygbjerg" />

After numerous tests and unsuccessful treatments, she returned home to her cottage on a fjord in November 1977.<ref name=":2" />

In December, she was called back for more tests, and returned to the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen where she remained until she died of AIDS-related ''[[Pneumocystis jirovecii]]'' [[pneumocystis pneumonia|pneumonia]] on 12 December 1977.<ref name="Lancet-Bygbjerg" />

In 1984, her blood was tested for HIV in Denmark. The test was negative. In 1987, a sample of her blood was sent to the United States, where it was tested with two different systems. Both tests were positive for HIV.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=Maj|first=Helle|date=2020-11-10|title=After hard working days she rested by the beautiful Ebola River|url=https://globalhealth.ku.dk/news/2020/after-hard-working-days-she-rested-by-the-beautiful-river-ebola/|access-date=2021-03-15|website=globalhealth.ku.dk|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Maj|first=Helle|date=2020-06-09|title=Grethe Rask reddede liv på congolesisk missionshospital, indtil mødet med ukendt virus blev fatalt|url=https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/udland/i-skovens-dybe-stille-ro|access-date=2021-03-15|website=Kristeligt Dagblad|language=da}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Timeline of early AIDS cases]]

==References==
<references/>

== Further reading ==
* '''[Website]''' [https://web.archive.org/web/20080212092545/http://home.cfl.rr.com/atbpo/ Photographs of the real people from Randy Shilts' history of the AIDS crisis "And the Band Played On"]
*[[Randy Shilts|Shilts, Randy]], ''[[And the Band Played On]],'' St. Martin's Press, 1987

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rask, Grethe}}
[[Category:1930 births]]
[[Category:1977 deaths]]
[[Category:Danish women physicians]]
[[Category:AIDS-related deaths in Denmark]]
[[Category:Danish surgeons]]
[[Category:People from Thisted]]
[[Category:Deaths from pneumonia in Denmark]]
[[Category:20th-century Danish physicians]]
[[Category:Health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo]]
[[Category:20th-century women physicians]]
[[Category:Date of birth missing]]
[[Category:20th-century surgeons]]
[[Category:Individual patients]]

Grethe Rask - Revision history

~2025-34080-02: changed 'first woman' to 'one of the first women' : Grethe Rask was not the first woman to die of AIDS related causes (see Arvid Noe page, his wife died in 1976)