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World AIDS Day: The struggle for good news
25 million people have died from AIDS in 24 years, more than three million of whom died this year alone, and at least 40 million people today have HIV, a rise of some five million over the past 12 months.
Twenty-five million people have died from AIDS in 24 years, more than three million of whom died this year alone, and at least 40 million people today have HIV, a rise of some five million over the past 12 months.
With just a month left to go, the World Health Organisation's goal of providing antiretroviral drugs for three million poor people with HIV by the end of 2005 is poised to fall dismally short of the mark.
Meanwhile, funding for the war on AIDS, which last year receded as a problem for the first time, is once more becoming a headache.
Money that could have gone to fight AIDS is instead being earmarked for helping survivors of the Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and Kashmir earthquake and for tackling bird flu.
Put all this together, and it is no surprise that World AIDS Day on Thursday should carry a dour and rather depressing slogan.
Its message -- "Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise" -- is aimed at governments and donors, indirectly reminding them that natural disasters are tragic but temporary, and meanwhile a lethal global pandemic is still raging.
Yet even as the AIDS pandemic continues to outstrip efforts to roll it back, there is some encouraging news.
The big rollout of antiretrovirals to sub-Saharan Africa, which began in 2003 under the WHO's "Three by Five" initiative, is building up steam, helping to transform HIV from a death sentence to a chronic but manageable disease.
