Offline: How close are we to an AIDS-free world?

Abstract

At last year's International AIDS Society meeting in Washington, DC, I ran into a friend who once worked at a UN health agency. He was agitated. All the talk at that conference of an AIDS-free generation, getting to zero, the end of AIDS, and a cure was nonsense, irresponsible, and dangerous, he said. Go to parts of Africa and see for yourself if the end of AIDS is anywhere in sight. It is not, and to suggest that it might be is to imply, incorrectly, that the era of AIDS is drawing to a close. If we even suggest that the end of AIDS is within reach, we will give politicians an excuse to be complacent—to stop investing in AIDS research and HIV treatment and prevention programmes. As my friend later wrote to me: “I object to Orwellian news-speak, where the end is not really the end.” What we need, he went on, “is that people get real about what we can achieve with current interventions, and stop saying that the end of AIDS is in sight…The best we can hope for…is low endemic levels”.