Is it any wonder that the HIV/AIDS new infection rate still outstrips the number of people receiving treatment by a ratio of 5:2 when we're dealing with people with this type of attitude? According to the latest statistics from UNAIDS, for every two people receiving treatment there are five new cases of HIV/AIDS reported. For the longest time, people have even tried to avoid saying which groups are most at risk from the disease for fear of marginalizing them even more than they are already.
Thankfully people like Stephen Lewis, former UN special envoy to Africa for HIV/AIDS, and Joe Amon, health and human-rights director at Human Rights Watch, are at least demanding that the rights of those most at risk must be protected and steps taken to ensure their access to treatment. It's a small step, but at least it's a step in the right direction. Still, it's a sad state of affairs when, at a conference dealing with a disease for which there is no cure and no vaccine, they can't talk about the best ways of preventing its spread in the opening addresses.
I know it's early days yet and the 17th International AIDS Conference still has a way to go, but from the looks of things we're no closer to dealing with the reality of HIV/AIDS now than we were when the first conference was held. As long as we continue to allow a moral code based on bigotry and hatred to dictate health care, people will continue to die and the disease will continue to spread.
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