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Science is showing the way to the
world’s first AIDS-free generation in decades, a senior US health official said
Sunday, the first day of the 19th International AIDS Conference in Washington.
“There is no excuse, scientifically,
to say we cannot do it,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “What we need now is the
political and organizational will to implement what science has given us.”
The science behind the early
initiation of treatment for people with HIV has been “slam-dunk, out of the ballpark,”
Fauci said. Those whose viral levels are successfully controlled by treatment
are virtually not infectious, research has shown. That suggests getting
treatment to more people with HIV could be a powerful HIV prevention tool,
Fauci said. Some 20 percent of people with HIV do not know they have the virus,
and most new infections are spread by the undiagnosed, he said.
“Seek, test, treat and retain” is
now the mantra for AIDS advocates, said Nora Volkow, director of the National
Institute on Drug Abuse.
Changing the course of HIV/AIDS “is
not going to happen spontaneously,” Fauci said. “It’s going to require purpose
and commitment.” The National Institutes of Health has spent $50 billion on
AIDS since 1982, Fauci noted.
Initially, some people were doubtful
about the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which President George
W. Bush launched in 2003. The United States committed $15 billion to PEPFAR
when few in the developing world had access to treatment, and devoted $48
billion to it in 2008. PEPFAR has provided HIV treatment to almost 4 million
people and averted 200,000 mother-to-child infections. PEPFAR is up for
re-authorization next year and continues to have bipartisan support in
Congress, Fauci said.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
