When World AIDS Day was first observed in 1988, there was no truly effective treatment for what was almost always a deadly disease.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Early in 1986, the World Health Organization in Geneva still regarded AIDS as an ailment of the promiscuous few.
AIDS today is not a death sentence. It can be treated as a chronic illness, or a chronic disease.
Some countries that I go to are still trying to deny that it's happening. In India, 2.1 million people are living with HIV AIDS. India manufactures most of the drugs that are used to cure HIV around the world, which is an amazing, amazing fact that most people don't know.
You can't be involved in healthcare without being involved in the battle against AIDS.
AIDS is a global problem and there should be a global solution found by the entire international community. It is really scary to see and imagine our world fall into pieces because we refuse to share and put in the common vestiges of our civilizations.
AIDS was allowed to happen. It is a plague that need not have happened. It is a plague that could have been contained from the very beginning.
AIDS does not inevitably lead to death, especially if you suppress the co-factors that support the disease. It is very important to tell this to people who are infected.
In the wealthy industrialized nations, effective drug therapies against AIDS became available - AZT as early as 1987, then combinations of antiretroviral agents in 1996. The new drugs offered hope that fatal complications might be staved off and AIDS rendered a chronic condition.
History will not judge HIV/AIDS kindly... the harshest words will be reserved for how the world responded, or rather failed to respond, to the epidemic.
HIV/AIDS has no boundaries.