Community engagement makes science better and results of uptake better. We learned this from HIV.
Say “pandemic” and most people think COVID-19. Yet HIV, which takes a life every minute, remains the deadliest pandemic of our time.
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), an estimated 79 million people have become infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It still has no vaccine or cure, although 28 million of the 38 million people living with HIV today are on life-saving antiretroviral therapy that keeps them well by reducing the amount of virus in their bodies and preventing transmission. That means 10 million people are not.
HIV infections are rising in many countries and progress against new infections has slowed in others. More than four decades after AIDS was first reported in 1981, “we live in a world where HIV is the forgotten epidemic,” says the program describing the opening session of the world’s largest international meeting focusing on HIV/AIDS, the 24th International AIDS Conference. The five-day meeting gets underway in Montreal on Friday.
This article was written by Susan Schwartz and originally posted on Montreal Gazette. Please click HERE to read the full article.
