Aids activist and playwright Larry Kramer, 84, dies

According to The New York Times, writer, playwright, and Aids activist Larry Kramer has died.

He was 84 years old. 

Kramer played an instrumental role in shifting health policies in America during the Aids crisis in the 1980s and 1990s. 

His husband, David Webster, said Kramer died of pneumonia on Wednesday morning in Manhattan.

The Guardian reports that Kramer was a founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the pioneering organisation to assist those with HIV. 

Earlier in his life, Kramer was "a screenwriter with credits including Women in Love and the 1973 musical Lost Horizon," reports Variety.

Compiled by Herman Eloff. (Sources: The New York Times, The Guardian, Variety)