In the space of one year, you’re seeing a huge ramping up of AIDS services,” said Mark Stirling, regional director for the United Nations’ efforts against AIDS in eastern and southern Africa. “It’s unprecedented. In the acceleration and intensification of reach, 2008 was an extraordinary year.”
But the United Nations’ progress report on AIDS also contained sobering news. While more than a million people were put on drugs in the past year — drugs they will need for the rest of their lives — 2.7 million people were newly infected with H.I.V. in 2007, the latest year for which there were estimates.
via U.N. Cites Global Rise in Detection and Treatment of AIDS – NYTimes.com.
There have been great strides in recent years because of increased funding and humanitarian aid. Many people have more access to the essential antiretroviral drugs that will keep the disease in check. But the real solution to this epidemic doesn’t lie in treatment but prevention. There needs to be more education about how the disease is spread and ways you can protect yourself from it. We can continue to spend millions handing out drugs to an ever increasing population of HIV positive patients or we can stop the disease from spreading in the first place. The South African Health Minister said this in 2006: “Unfortunately, up until now too much of the focus has been on treatment and there has been a lack of focus on prevention. Prevention has become the forgotten child of HIV response. In the absence of a cure, prevention has to be the mainstay in the struggle against AIDS.”
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