Treating AIDS

I'm one of the lucky ones,” said Mark Harrington in June 1998, describing his body's response to a potent combination of three anti-AIDS drugs before thousands of delegates in Geneva, Switzerland, at the 12th World AIDS Conference. Harrington, an American AIDS activist, became infected in 1985 with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). He began taking the drugs in 1996. “There can be little question that my immune system is much better, and my health stronger, than it was in 1996,” he told the assembled delegates.
Harrington's story illustrates the enormous progress made in treating people living with HIV and the infection's late stage, AIDS. But Harrington is lucky: The vast majority of HIV-infected people across the globe live in developing countries, where access to sophisticated medical care and costly medications is far beyond the reach of nearly all of those infected.
Another conference delegate, Rubarima Ruranga, a major in the Ugandan army and an AIDS activist who has lived with HIV for 13 years, painted a starkly contrasting picture. In Uganda nearly 2 million of the country's 20 million people are infected with HIV. Despite a public health budget of only about $8 per person, Uganda has one of Africa's most effective AIDS prevention programs. But even if pharmaceutical firms substantially lower the cost of their anti-AIDS drugs, as some have agreed to do, the country's meager resources could not be stretched to provide these medications for all of its HIV-infected citizens, Ruranga said