As I understand it (I'm no doctor, so you get what you pay for), this guy is HIV-positive. That does not mean he develops the disease, however. Many do, of course, but not all. There are several types of drugs today that weren't around in the early 80's when this disease surfaced beyond the few original fudgepackers and the death rate has dropped significantly.
Magic Johnson is still around, and he tested HIV positive damn near 20 years ago.
I and the rest of my unit, indeed all of the Berlin Brigade, was subjected to mandatory testing in 1985. We had two guys in the unit who came up positive. Both were immediately sent back to the States and medically retired. At least one of them died from AIDS which developed from being HIV positive. It's pretty clear that both were gay, though likely not from being pals themselves.
In any event, with the advent of fairly successive drug therapy, the death sentence that being HIV positive used to be isn't quite the case anymore.