AIDS, Sociology of

Abstract

AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is caused by a retrovirus identified in 1984: the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Thirty years later, it is estimated that around 36 million people are living with HIV, with 95 percent living in low‐ and middle‐income countries (UNAIDS, 2013). There is at present no cure for AIDS and no effective prophylactic vaccine for HIV, and the number of people living with HIV continues to grow. In 1996 a successful treatment was developed, anti‐retro viral therapy (ART), which blocks HIV from entering the body's immune cells to effectively slow the progression from HIV to AIDS to death. As a result the number of AIDS deaths is declining with 1.6 million AIDS deaths in 2012, down from 2.3 million in 2005. Although ART lowers the viral load, it does not eradicate the virus in those infected, and the number of people living with HIV worldwide (HIV prevalence) is increasing. Furthermore, for every person who initiates treatment, between three and four more persons become infected. On a more positive note, since 1999, the year in which it is thought that the epidemic peaked globally, the number of new infections (HIV incidence) has fallen. The overall growth of the global epidemic appears to have stabilized with the annual number of new HIV infections steadily declining; although levels remain high with around 2.3 million new infections globally in 2012, a 33 percent decline from 3.4 million in 2001 (UNAIDS, 2013).