[EQ] 25 years of HIV

25 years of HIV

Anthony S. Fauci,  Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immuno regulation.

Nature 453, 289-290 (15 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/453289a; Published online 14 May 2008

 

Website: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/full/453289a.html

 

“…..The HIV/AIDS catastrophe has been one of the defining features of the past quarter of a century. Although it is short-lived in the scheme of public-health crises, the pandemic ranks among the most devastating microbial scourges in human history, one whose full impact has yet to be realized.

 

Sixty million people have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); nearly half have died, and the toll on families, communities and even entire nations has been profound. Meanwhile, the biomedical research effort directed at HIV/AIDS has resulted in some breathtaking successes. Unlike many other diseases that affect mostly the poor, marginalized and disenfranchised, HIV/AIDS captured the attention of world leaders, the medical, public-health and activist communities, funding agencies, philanthropists and many celebrities. This resulted in an unprecedented scientific and public-health response to the disease, and in welcome attention to some of the many other problems endemic in those populations most severely afflicted with HIV/AIDS, such as malaria, tuberculosis and gender inequality.

 

Much remains to be accomplished in the global fight against HIV. There are many more scientific and medical hurdles to be cleared and numerous logistical and operational obstacles to making therapies and other interventions available to poor countries, where per capita income is sometimes only a few hundred dollars a year and health-care spending a tiny fraction of that. Reflecting on the era of HIV/AIDS, we must learn from our mis-steps, build on our successes in treatment and prevention, and renew our commitment to developing the truly transforming tools that will one day put this scourge behind us….”

 

 

 

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