Sonya Sherman; Early Woman Victim of AIDS

One of the first women in the country diagnosed with AIDS has died of brain damage stemming from her affliction.

Sonya Sherman, a legal secretary when she developed the disease in 1983 and most recently a national spokeswoman in the fight against acquired immune deficiency syndrome, died Sunday at her home in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Md.

Miss Sherman, 35, had said she believed she contracted AIDS through sexual contact with a bisexual man in 1980. When she was diagnosed, he had no symptoms of the disease, and it has not been reported whether he has since developed AIDS.

After her diagnosis, Miss Sherman began actively counseling other AIDS victims and was cited in the media as an example that the affliction strikes women as well as homosexual men and drug addicts using contaminated needles.

She entered a program at the National Institutes of Health using experimental drugs to bolster her immune system. However, her health deteriorated and she suffered repeated bouts with pneumonia, became diabetic and grew deaf.

In an NBC-TV interview telecast five days before her death, Miss Sherman said she was too weak to do much more than lie on her couch.

“I think I am still fighting, but I also think there are days when I just sort of--I’d like to give up or at least take a nap,” she said.