AIDS toll climbs”Last year, 42,136 new AIDS cases were diagnosed in the United States, up 2.2 percent from the previous year. The number of gay and bisexual men infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was up for the third year in a row after a decade of declining numbers. Health officials say prevention efforts have stalled, and they are changing their strategy from one of preventing new cases to counseling those who already have HIV in an attempt to get them to stop spreading it.” – The Associated Press
Americans can work themselves into a panicky frenzy over the thought of contracting a deadly disease. Think of the multitudes swallowing antibiotics during the Anthrax scare. Those who changed their travel plans, and even the imbeciles who avoided Chinese food during the SARS epidemic. Or those who slather their bodies with insect repellent, fearing that every mosquito carries the potentially deadly West Nile virus. So what is about preventing the spread of AIDS that they just don’t get? Tremendous advances in treating the HIV virus, the precursor to full-blown AIDS cases, have been made since the virus first appeared in the early 1980s. But the treatment just prolongs the inevitable. The virus eventually kills. There is no cure. There is no vaccine. And newer strains are drug-resistant.
The AP story notes that many Americans felt that AIDS is just an African epidemic, and that the disease is under control in their own country.
The new figures ought to wake them up. If the disease were under control the number of new cases would be on the decline, as it was for 10 years. The goal was to halve the number of cases by 2005. That just isn’t happening.
One possible explanation offered is that a new generation of gay men have entered their 20s without the memory of the early years of AIDS devastation. They may enter sexually active years erroneously thinking that popping a few pills will cure them if they become infected with HIV.
And those living seemingly healthy lives with HIV have become cavalier in practicing safe sex.
The story notes that the Centers for Disease Control and health officials think prevention programs must be reworked. While before the prevention message was delivered to uninfected people, urging precaution and condoms, the focus must shift to stopping HIV infected people from spreading the disease.
The responsibility for stemming the number of AIDS cases falls on every sexually active person. This is a disease that can be prevented and stopped. And unlike anthrax and SARS, every American has the power to control its course.