Dominic d'Souza

Dominic D'Souza was an Goan Indian AIDS activist. His life was the basis of the film My Brother…Nikhil (directed by Onir) and the novel The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi. D'Souza was a frequent blood donor and a worker at the World Wildlife Fund. In 1989, after mandatory blood testing under The Goa, Daman and Diu Public Health Act, 1985, he was found to have contracted HIV, making him Goa's patient zero for the virus. Upon learning he was infected, authorities forcibly quarantined him, keeping him isolated in a tuberculosis ward for 64 days. He legally fought against the quarantine and, following his release, resigned his position at the World Wildlife Fund. Together with his friend Isabel de Santa Maria Vas, he founded the HIV/AIDS non-governmental organization Positive People in April 1992. D'Souza died in a Mumbai hospital in May 1992, a month after registering the new organization.

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