30 years of HIV/AIDS

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the “discovery” of AIDS. On June 5, 1981, America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that in the preceding seven months, five young men in Los Angeles had been treated for ailments which all included, as part of their manifestation, a form of pneumonia. What made it even more intriguing was that the five victims did not know one another, and had been treated at three different hospitals. It wasn’t until a year later, however, that the new disease was given the name ‘AIDS’.

Two-thirds of the approximate 33 million persons living with HIV/AIDS worldwide today are to be found in Sub-Saharan Africa, as is 80 percent of the total number of new infections seen in young adults in 2009. The sub-Saharan prevalence rate is estimated at 5 percent, by far the highest in the world, and several times the global rate of 0.8 percent. UNICEF reports that, of the estimated 890,000 young adults worldwide who were infected with HIV in 2009, nearly a third of are from Nigeria and South Africa. An estimated 120,000 Nigerians aged between 15 and 24 were infected with HIV in 2009 alone.

It should also point out the critical role that social and economic conditions play in the spread or containment of the disease. As UNICEF says in its new report, which focuses on HIV infections amongst the world’s young: “To be effective, prevention efforts need to provide information, support, effective commodities and services as well as address the problems that heighten a young person’s risk, such as lack of opportunity, gender inequality and poverty.” With its intimidating levels of illiteracy, poverty and gender inequality, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that sub-Saharan Africa has those dismal figures.

However, vital though it may be to scientifically understand the nature of the disease, the solution cannot come from science alone. The solution has also to involve a fundamental shift in the priorities of society. But this is unlikely to happen without a fundamental change in the economic basis of society itself. The fact is that we already have in place all the elements of a comprehensive package, short of an effective vaccine, that, if fully implemented, could drastically curb the spread of this disease and prolong the lives of those affected. As it is, such a package is often only partially, or patchily, implemented.