HIV/AIDS: One of the Greatest Medical Fights in Human History

Will HIV/AIDS go down in history as the single largest pandemic of all time or will we effectively stop this killer before it tops the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages or the Great Influenza of 1918-1919? Early warnings suggested that HIV/AIDS deaths could reach 90 million, higher than the estimated 75 million that fell victim to the "black death" in the 14th century and the more than 50 million that died of the Spanish Flu as World War I ended. Now, thirty years into the crisis, AIDS has infected 60 million people and 27 million have died. How will history judge our response? And where do we go from here?

When AIDS first hit in the summer of 1981, doctors were baffled -- all they could do was help orchestrate a dignified death for their patients. Today, due to unprecedented investment and global collaboration, more than thirty drugs have been licensed to treat AIDS and more than 6 million HIV-infected people in the world's poorest countries are receiving lifesaving treatment. This is a modern miracle of science, medicine, and humanity.

Their effects are impressive, however, antiretroviral drugs are not a cure -- once infected, always infected.

In the United States, approximately 1.2 million people are living with the virus although 20 percent are unaware of their status. New infections have stabilized from a high of 130,000 in the 1980s to approximately 50,000 annually. African-Americans have been particularly hard hit accounting for 44 percent of new infections while forming only 12 percent of the population. Unfortunately, as treatment options have expanded, complacency about the disease has set-in resulting in a continuing spread of the virus.

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