From the Executive Editor.(global HIV/AIDS epidemic)(Brief Article)(Editorial)

Louis W. Sullivan

THE HUMANITARIAN CHALLENGE OF THE GLOBAL HIV/AIDS EPIDEMIC

Many of us followed the scientific and public reports emanating from the International Conference on HIV and AIDS held in Durban, South Africa, in July 2000--the first time this important international meeting was held on the African continent. Many of those who attended stated that it was probably the best meeting that this organization had sponsored since the first international meeting on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Atlanta, Ga, in 1988 (jointly hosted by Morehouse School of Medicine, Emory Medical School, Emory School of Public Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

At the time of that first conference, AIDS was a disease primarily found in affluent white gay males, with a life expectancy of 1 to 3 years after diagnosis. There was no effective therapy for this viral infection, which impaired the ability of the body's immune system to ward off infection by a wide variety of microorganisms--bacterial, viral, and fungal. The primary modes of spread of HIV disease were by sexual contact or intravenous injection (IV drug use with contaminated needles or syringes, or transfusion of infected blood products) or intrauterine transmission of the virus from an infected mother to her child during pregnancy There was significant panic about HIV/AIDS because of fear about its spread; sometimes individuals refused to shake hands with, or embrace, an infected individual. Some employees were discharged from their jobs. Some infected children were barred from attending school because of fear.

During these past 12 years, much progress has been made in our understanding and treatment of HIV and AIDS. We now have a number of drugs that are effective in suppressing the ability of HIV to replicate, including inhibitors of DNA synthesis, protease inhibitors, reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and others. Although there is not yet a cure for HIV/AIDS, many patients have lived with the disease for 10 to 15 years because of the new therapies. Advances in biomedical research from our ...