AIDS specialists confronting spread: `We're losing the battle'

[donsu]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9127745.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp&1c

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''We're losing the battle,'' said Dr. Seth Berkley, chief executive officer of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. ``We haven't ended the epidemic anywhere.''

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"We're seeing a second flux here,'' said Kelly Patterson, of the Center for Positive Connections, an AIDS social services center in North Miami. South Florida has one of the highest AIDS rates in the country.

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Vaccine makers will be there, glumly regrouping from the failure of human trials of the AidsVax vaccine that got so much fanfare at the 2002 International AIDS Conference in Barcelona.

At some point this week, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will address the conference, urging greater efforts in fighting AIDS.

In a recent BBC interview, he confessed: ``I feel angry, I feel distressed, I feel helpless to live in a world where we have the means, we have the resources to be able to help all these patients, but what is lacking is a political will.''
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``We haven't ended the epidemic anywhere.''

[SoCalDem]

1. The AIDS virus is a very "successful" virus,

because of the mean of transmission.. Think about it..it infects young people who are at the height of their sexuality (and still have that sense of immortality and invulnerability)..In the beginning it is asymptomatic (insuring the further transmission), and once someone DOES have it, the new drugs (if they have access) can prolong their lives so long, that some may "feel cured" and continue to spread the disease..

The main transmission method...SEX... is still taboo in lots of societies, when it comes to talking about and preventing it.. Cheating husbands who bring it home to their wives, are not too eager to tell her they are cheating, so they roll the dice with HER life..

Young people who reallllllly want to have sex with someone they have recently met, are less likely to admit that they have been exposed.. They SHOULD..but in the real world, we all know this does not happen all the time..and one promiscuous person can infect several people..

[Karenina]

3. The "battle" has been long planned to be lost.

It's about POPULATION CONTROL, in case anyone is interested.

[SoCalDem]

4. That's unfortunately true..

especially in the "other" part of the world.. the "poor" part..

I have long maintained that the "help" we give is more talk than action, since dead people do not require aid of any kind.. The pronblem, is that like most pandemics, they eventually come back to our shores and run rampant too:(

[porphyrian]

2. Good thing we no longer promote condom use! - n/t