MSNBC TV VIDEO

• World AIDS Day
Dec. 1: Robert Bazell talks about the harsh realities in the global
battle against AIDS.
MSNBC


Slide show

• AIDS: Lost generation
Orphans are left to care for themselves, and
grandparents become parents again, as a generation of
mothers and fathers are lost to AIDS.


• Slide show: AIDS worldwide
• Picture story: A lost generation
• NBC video: Harsh realities of AIDS
• Statistics | Q&A | Quiz | Key facts
• Complete coverage

Most Popular
• Most Viewed • Top Rated • Most E-mailed

• Iraq insurgents launch raids on U.S. facilities
• Another piece of the puzzle is found on `Lost'
• Can psychic help with Britney's marriage woes?
• Kate just runs from her past on `Lost'
• Soda industry says school soft drink sales down
• Most viewed on MSNBC.com
• Stowaway cat flies business class back home
• U.S. troops fly rescued cheetah cubs to safety
• Sun-watching probe turns an amazing 10
• Cabbie strikes gold for returning lost diamonds
• Scientists add new twists to Titan's tale
• Most viewed on MSNBC.com
• Stowaway cat flies business class back home
• South Africa's high court approves gay marriage
• Kate just runs from her past on `Lost'
• Murtha: 'Worn' troops will leave Iraq in a year
• BlackBerry shutdown closer after ruling
• Most viewed on MSNBC.com

Related Stories | What's this?
• Study: AIDS drugs work in poor nations
• Churches turn to AIDS activism at home
• Risk of duplication in AIDS vaccine push
• 8,000 HIV/AIDS patients displaced by storm
• Brazil bucks AIDS trend
MEDPAGE TODAY
•Rare Fatal Toxic Shock Reported Following Medical
Abortions
•Acetaminophen Is Leading Cause of Acute Liver Failure
•Hepatitis C Healthcare Costs Rising as Patients Age
•Amateurs Save Lives Using Automated Defibrillators
Physicians... Earn CME with your medical news
By Robert Bazell
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 12:08 p.m. ET Dec. 1, 2005


Robert Bazell
Correspondent


NEW YORK - World AIDS day traditionally has become an
occasion for reciting statistics of a plague so
overwhelming it remains beyond comprehension. Just one
example: 3 million die a year—an average of 5.7 every
minute of every day. But there was one AIDS day that
was different and it was just two years ago.

Around that time, the World Health Organization
announced an ambitious plan called "three by five" to
get three million people in poor countries on the
effective anti-viral medications that have saved many
lives in the U.S. and other wealthy countries by the
end of 2005. President Bush announced that the U.S.
would spend $15 billion over five years to combat AIDS
in the developing world. And something called the
Global Fund for Fighting AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria said it too would spend billions for
effective AIDS therapy.

Until then most international health experts agreed
that treatment with effective anti-viral drugs for
poor countries was simply impossible. For one, the
cost was astronomical and would drain funds that could
be used to fight other deadly diseases in these areas,
such as malaria and tuberculosis. For another,
anti-retroviral drugs control the virus but don't cure
it, so providing them represents a long-term
commitment.

Doctors worried about the logistics of administering
complex medications in places with ramshackle roads,
inadequate hygiene, and no running water. What if
people missed doses, allowing drug-resistant forms of
the virus to emerge? Experts also worried that if
people believed there was an effective treatment for
AIDS, then prevention efforts would fail.

The result was the infected poor watched while the
infected wealthy survive.

But an amazing coalition of activists, bureaucrats and
politicians from rich and poor countries, the United
Nations, academics and several non-governmental
groups—most notably Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on
Technology, Médicins Sans Frontières, President
Clinton's Global Initiative and Act Up—brought
critical changes.


Slide show
AIDS Worldwide



The annual cost of the medications fell from more than
$10,000 to less than $150. Numerous demonstration
projects showed that the treatments could be effective
in those surroundings. Countries pledged money for
the effort and two years ago it seemed like true
progress was possible.

Return to horrible statistics
But the story of this year's World AIDS day is again
failure. The World Health Organization says that only
one million people in poor countries are getting the
drugs out of the six million who will surely die soon
without them. And even the one million figure is an
exaggeration. Fully 300,000 are in Brazil, a
relatively wealthy country that manufactures its own
AIDS medication and is one of the only nations of the
developing world to truly confront and conquer its
AIDS threat. The cause for the failure is almost due
to shortfalls in the financial commitments, and not
just by the United States. The Tsunami, Katrina, the
Pakistani earthquake and other catastrophes diverted
the world's attention from AIDS.

So, for World AIDS Day 2005 we can return to the
horrible statistics: 40 million currently infected and
massive epidemics preparing to erupt in India, China,
and Russia with little apparent concern for prevention
methods that could stop the unfolding disaster.

And let us not think that failure with respect to AIDS
occurs in only other countries.

We are approaching the twenty fifth year of the AIDS
epidemic in the U.S. The drugs brought a 70 per cent
decline in the death rate in the this country from
their discovery in the early 1990s to the mid-1990s.
But they are not a cure and eventually they stop
working. In this country, 14,000 people a year still
die from AIDS and that number has not changed since
1998. Health officials estimate that 40,000 Americans
still get infected every year.


RELATED STORIES
NBC: Russia meets 'Miss Positive 2005'
NBC: China steps up AIDS battle



Some well known prevention strategies could lower that
number—public education, condom use, clean needles and
syringes and more widespread testing for infection
with the AIDS virus. An old fashioned public health
method where people who are infected are identified
and their sexual partners are contacted anonymously
could also lower the infection rate. But as New York
City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden and his
colleagues write in the current New England Journal of
Medicine "religious and political groups oppose the
use of effective prevention measures" while "some
advocacy groups oppose" contact tracing and widespread
testing.

World AIDS Day seems destined to be a time when we
call attention to our failures in the face of the
greatest public health crisis ever.

© 2005 MSNBC Interactive
Rate this story Low High Current rating:
3.5 by 1068 users • View Top Rated stories

Print this Email this Blog this IM this
MORE FROM AIDS
AIDS Section Front
• NBC: A story of failure for World AIDS Day• NBC:
Russia meets 'Miss Positive 2005'• NBC: China's battle
vs. AIDS• Education promoted on World AIDS Day•
Africa's youngest AIDS victims left behind• Bush
reaffirms U.S. effort to fight AIDS• Russia outcasts
its youngest AIDS victims• HIV prevention key to
China's future• Churches turn to AIDS activism at
home• Study: AIDS drugs work in poor nations• AIDS
Section Front

Taken from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10268644/