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AIDS remains the World’s worst epidemic

Although little attention has now been given to the deadly virus, the World Health Organization confirms that AIDS still remains the worst epidemic ever having claimed the lives of no less than 27 million people already to date.

While news of swine or bird flu or AH1N1 has attracted the headlines of television and news channels in the recent years, a silent killer remains on the loose with no enough importance being given by the media and governments. Since first discovered in 1982 the world has not yet overcome the threat of HIV AIDS even after an anti-retroviral drug to treat the virus has come out on 1996. On 1996, an estimated 3.5 million people have been diagnosed to have been infected with the virus and two years ago, the figures have plunged down to 2.7 million. Several fort-world countries like Australia have already contained the spread of the virus to a manageable level. But the world’s biggest economy, the superpower United States lags behind its neighbors in the fight against HIV. As a matter of fact, it has the same level of virus prevalence with Somalia and Costa Rica.

Many have thought that AIDS is no longer a threat and that government institutions no longer need to consider the deadly virus a priority issue to address in their respective domestic health concerns. Reality wise, the number of people getting infected and dying of the virus ins precisely dwindling down on the global scale. Yet in some countries, AIDS prevalence in still on the rise and in a number of them HIV AIDS is already reaching explosive levels.

In Southeast Asia, particularly China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, AIDS is infesting an increasing number of individuals. Even in the far-eastern part of the Pacific, the Papua New Guinea, the virus is relatively spreading fast.

In Pakistan as revealed by UN-AIDS, 28 percent of sex workers have no idea about HIV or AIDS and more than 60 percent are not aware of the preventive capacity of condoms. In brief, in so many countries, governments have been too complacent in preventing the surge of AIDS infections and deaths. And this complacency hat put their respective countries under threat not only of AIDS deaths but also of diseases carried by the virus like Tuberculosis. One should remember that TB is as deadly and prevalent than AIDS in so many parts of the world.

With the discovery and development of the anti-retroviral drug which prevents the further spread of the virus in an infected person’s body, more and more people caught with AIDS are living with the virus. As nations panic to prevent AIDS –related deaths, the funds and technical needs to carry out anti-AIDS programs are getting higher. But current AIDS awareness campaigns have but two major source of funds- the Global Fund against AIDS funded by first world countries and huge private donors such as the Gates Foundation. Since 2002, the amount of funds poured into the campaign has already reached 12 billion dollars , quite short still of what is need to carry-out a massive global campaign.

But with the current financial crisis affecting the world richest nations, funds needed for the AIDS campaign is becoming scarcer to find. As governments and non-profit sectors struggle to keep the campaign against AIDS alive, China and Australia are being summoned to take the lead role in the campaign. The World Health Organization hopes that the two countries can provide the necessary diplomatic powers to influence other countries in responding to the worldwide AIDS problem.