A Cure for AIDS​—Urgently Needed!

At the Central Market of Lilongwe, Malawi, Grace sells luxury shoes. She appears happy and healthy. Her cheerful smile, though, hides a tragic story.

In 1993, Grace and her husband were overjoyed at the birth of their daughter, Tiyanjane. At the outset, Tiyanjane seemed to be in good health. Yet, she soon stopped gaining weight and contracted one infection after another. At the age of three, Tiyanjane died from AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome).

A few years later, Grace’s husband also began to get sick. One day he collapsed and was taken to the hospital. Doctors could not save him. Grace’s husband of eight years died of AIDS-related complications.

Grace now lives alone in a one-room house in the suburbs of Lilongwe. One might expect that at 30 years of age, Grace would be beginning to rebuild her life. She, however, explains: “I have got HIV so I will not get married or have any more children.” a

SADLY, such experiences are hardly unique in Malawi, where an estimated 15 percent of the population are infected with HIV. At one rural hospital, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper, “bed occupancy is at 150 per cent, and the facility has lost more than 50 per cent of its medical staff” to AIDS. The prevalence of HIV infection is even higher in other countries of sub-Saharan Africa. In 2002 the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) reported: “The average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is currently 47 years. Without AIDS, it would have been 62 years.”

The plague of HIV/AIDS, however, is pandemic, extending far beyond the African continent. UNAIDS estimates that some four million adults in India are infected with HIV, adding: “With the current disease burden, HIV will emerge as the largest cause of adult mortality this decade.” The epidemic is growing fastest in the Commonwealth of Independent States, a federation composed of most republics of the former Soviet Union. One report says that in Uzbekistan, “more HIV cases were reported in 2002 alone compared to the whole of the previous decade.” HIV infection in the United States continues to be a leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 25 and 44.

 Awake! first published a series of articles on AIDS in 1986. That year, Dr. H. Mahler, then director of the World Health Organization, warned that some ten million people may have already been infected with HIV. Almost two decades later, the number of HIV cases worldwide has increased to an estimated 42 million, growing at a rate more than ten times the rate of population growth! Experts suggest that the future looks no less sinister. “In the 45 most affected countries,” reports UNAIDS, “it is projected that, between 2000 and 2020, 68 million people will die prematurely as a result of AIDS.”

With such an alarming infection rate, a cure for AIDS has never been more urgently needed. Thus, medical researchers have labored tirelessly to combat HIV. What advances have been made in the fight against this deadly plague? Is it reasonable to hope for an end to AIDS?

[Footnote]

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Worldwide, an estimated 42 million people have HIV/AIDS; 2.5 million are children

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INDIA​—Health volunteers receive education about AIDS

[Credit Line]

© Peter Barker/Panos Pictures

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BRAZIL​—A social worker comforts a woman suffering from AIDS

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© Sean Sprague/Panos Pictures

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THAILAND​—A volunteer worker cares for a child born with HIV

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© Ian Teh/Panos Pictures