Since the first reported case of AIDS 31 years ago, the disease has killed 30 million people, revolutionized sexual practice and provided a generation with its defining anxiety. Now, if politicians and policymakers do their part, we can eradicate it.
That was the striking consensus at the opening of the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C. “There is no excuse scientifically to say we cannot [conquer AIDS],” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, a director at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
A cocktail of antiretroviral drugs used to treat the disease has, for the 8 million people on the medication, changed AIDS from a terminal into a chronic condition and all but eliminated the risk of transmission.
The global statistics are encouraging. AIDS deaths are down 24 per cent from their peak in 2005 and the number of newly affected people has reached its lowest point since 2001. However, it’s estimated that some 7 million people who could benefit from the drug cocktail are too poor to access it; roughly 1 per cent of those afflicted have the disease without even knowing it.