Detroit Free Press: With AIDS at 30, is daylight at the end of the tunnel?

[marmar]

This Thursday's commemoration of World AIDS Day marks a potential turning point in the fight against a global epidemic that has yet to be arrested.

That fight began 30 years ago when U.S. scientists first reported a mysterious new disease that was killing young men by leaving them vulnerable to rare forms of pneumonia, cancer and other health problems. Since then, AIDS has killed 30 million people around the world; 34 million live with HIV today.

AIDS still infects 2.7 million people a year -- a number that's not decreasing -- and kills 1.7 million. With the number of deaths decreasing, preventing new infections is the key to ending the scourge of AIDS once and for all.

Over the past three decades, scientific discoveries about the virus and advances in treating it have brought the end of the AIDS epidemic within view. Accomplishing that, however, will take political will, additional resources and even stronger leadership by the United States. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20111129/OPINION01/111290320/Editorial-AIDS-30-daylight-end-tunnel-?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p

[xchrom]

1. 30 years. nt