Cover Story

Scaling up prevention and treatment could stop the spread of the once deadly condition

The global goal is to end AIDS by 2030 , a challenging task since we still have no vaccine or cure .

�It is not a mystery . It is a choice , � said Winnie Byanyima , the UNAIDS Executive Director , in the report The Path that Ends AIDS . �HI� responses succeed when they are anchored in strong political leadership to follow the evidence ; to tackle the inequalities holding back progress ; to enable communities and civil society organizations in their vital roles in the response� and to ensure su�cient and sustainable funding . �

The global goal is to end AIDS by 2030 , a challenging task since we still have no vaccine or cure . But this ambition could turn into reality thanks to the powerful HIV medications that have been developed over the last several decades .

HI� , or human immunodeficiency virus , weakens the immune system , which makes minor infections like the flu or harder-to-treat conditions such as tuberculosis and cancer more di�cult to manage and potentially lethal . AIDS , or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , is the most advanced stage of the infection . Without treatment , HI� progresses to AIDS in about five to 10 years , with people with AIDS on average surviving for about three years . Some of the most common ways of transmission include unprotected sex , contaminated blood donation , and sharing of needles .

When the disease was first identified in the 1��0s , there was no clear understanding of how it was making people unwell , let alone any treatment to manage it , exposing patients to several infections and health problems with little hope of surviving .

To compound their physical suffering , people living with HIV were forced to bear a social stigma , especially LGBT� patients . Since many of the first individuals diagnosed with AIDS were men who had sex with men , the condition was sometimes referred to as the �gay plague� or �gay cancer . � This was partly because AIDS often led to the development of a rare cancer called Kaposi sarcoma . Patients themselves were blamed for getting infected and spreading the disease , a moral failing that led to their sexual promiscuity or a punishment from God . The fear of contagion quickly turned into discrimination .

�HI�-infected kids such as �yan White were banned from schools� employees were fired simply because they were suspected of having AIDS� police o�cers in Washington raided a gay bar wearing gloves , face masks and bulletproof vests to protect themselves from what was described then as a ‘ lethal threat ’, � Steven Petrov wrote in the Washington Post .

Remarkable advancements made , but discrimination persists The medical community has long established that carriers of the virus can safely socialise and interact with others as the infection can only be spread

HIV , the virus causing AIDS , was identified in the 1980s .

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