HIV Prevention
Laurie Garrett's Article: HIV prevention
Two years ago, Laurie Garrett wrote about her reasons for not attending the International AIDS conference:
"The slogan of the first 15 years of the pandemic was, “Until there is a cure!” Today it seems the global health leadership of the world is satisfied with, “Until there is lifelong drug therapy for everybody, and no prevention strategy!” A dangerous sentiment is sweeping over the AIDS establishment, calling for elimination of all funding for HIV vaccine research and prevention programs, shifting those dollars, euros and yen to expanding HIV treatment...
It is inconceivable that children coming of age in 2021 - 40 years after the recognized start of this epidemic - will feel gratitude toward today’s leaders for saddling them with a still widely circulating virus. If today’s HIV-treatment model is viewed as an interim step - keeping people alive until a cure and vaccine are discovered - its funding and expansion make sense not only morally, but also as a practical matter of economics and foreign policy - but only if a massive commitment to finding searches for both a vaccine and cure for HIV are sustained for years to come. (Even the cancer lobby recognizes the needs for both oncology treatment access and ongoing curative research.)"
http://www.cfr.org/publication/16875/wrong_way_to_fight_aids.html
On the eve of the next International AIDS conference, the questions she poses is one we should be asking ourselves: are we doing enough to prevent the spread of HIV? Have the last two years brought a greater understanding of how to prevention HIV infection? If we have this knowledge, do we know how to generate the financial and political support to operationalise this knowledge into effective interventions for prevention AND treatment? Additionally, how do HIV prevention interventions related to interventions for other disease areas and ultimately the system in which they are implemented?
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