Title: After more than a decade of AIDS, prevention programmes begin to prove their worth.

POPLINE Document Number: 108692

Author(s):

Whiteside A

Source citation:

AIDS ANALYSIS AFRICA, 1995 Oct;5(5):8-9.

Abstract:

The first reports of AIDS, then an unidentified new disease, surfaced in the US in 1981. HIV was identified as the causal agent in 1983, and a diagnostic test for the presence of HIV antibodies was developed shortly thereafter. The investment of millions of research dollars since then has yet, however, to lead to a cure or vaccine against HIV/AIDS. Millions of people have been infected over the past decade with HIV, many have died due to AIDS, and many continue to be infected daily. HIV and AIDS are truly global in scope, but they will not annihilate entire populations as predicted during the 1980s. On the one hand, it has been demonstrated that the appropriate prevention and control measures can contain the spread of HIV. On the other, we now know that the prevalence of HIV infection will peak at different levels depending upon the country. Extensive blood screening, the prevention and control of sexually transmitted diseases, and education interventions designed to bring about changes in sex and related risk reduction behaviors have helped to control HIV in selected populations and countries around the world. Examples of such success are noted in Thailand and Zimbabwe. Although AIDS has become a major cause of death among young adults, people are coping with their loss. Cost-effective ways to help these affected individuals, families, and communities adapt to HIV/AIDS are needed. Finally, efforts aimed at stopping the epidemic must continue, with attention also given to understanding and changing the conditions which allowed HIV to spread.

Keywords:

Global
AIDS Prevention
HIV Prevention
AIDS
HIV Infections
Viral Diseases
Diseases