Upsetting Anniversary

You know, 25 years is not a long time. This is contrary to the opinion most people would expect from a 19 year old, but it's really not a long time at all. Especially in the grand scheme of things. So how is it, that in only 25 years, 25 million people have died from AIDS?

Today, the media buzz is the fact it has been 25 years to the day since the first cases of HIV were discovered in Los Angeles. 25 000 000 people, gone. And what of the 40 million people worldwide, virtually the "walking dead", who will die without treatment? I mean, of course there's no cure yet, but allow me to reiterate, anti-retroviral (ARV) medications can slow down the progression of the disease to a significant degree. In the first world, you can live with AIDS for a long time. Granted, life is not peachy; there's still a lot of stigma attached to it, reminiscint of leperosy, except it's often physically invisible.

AIDS amplifies inequality; in affluent nations people are more likely to have access to the ARV's, as well as better diets and hygiene. This lengthens their life expectancies. However, in impoverished nations, the disease progresses at an alarmingly fast rate...the strain in Africa goes from HIV to AIDS much faster than the North American strain... people can die 2-3 years after being infected with HIV. Combine that with the poverty, inadequate nutrition, hygiene, and underfunded health care system of many regions of Africa, and you've got a deadly recipe for a pandemic. And far from being a gay-male disease, the infection rates have skyrocketed for African women - now 70% of infected African's are women, because biologically, females contract AIDS more readily than men.

Yet again, i publish an entry angry.