Yesterday was World AIDS Day, a yearly event intended to unite people from all around the world in the difficult fight against this disease. It's an opportunity to show support for those living with HIV and to remember those who have died of AIDS. Yet beyond this yearly day of remembrance, it seems that AIDS is mostly forgotten by the world.
One would think that the news cycle would love such a consistent disease. It kills four people every minute, 228 every hour and 5,479 every day.
One can almost imagine Wolf Blitzer talking about the political situation in the Middle East while a counter to the top left of the screen counts how many people AIDS claimed that day. But it is the ruthless regularity of this disease that causes our attention to erode.
News services don't care anymore for reporting the cold hard truth, preferring instead to cover sensationalist stories about the latest "animal flu" or giving airtime to people, satiating their need for free publicity (consider, for instance, "Pastor" Terry Jones who burned the Qur'an on September 11, 2010).
It is also worth remembering that HIV/AIDS is a disease that, since its discovery, has had a certain stigma attached to it.
Until it became apparent that anyone, regardless of race, gender or sexuality, could get AIDS, it was assumed that a carrier of HIV had to be in a same-sex relationship. In the press, the term GRID (gay-related immunodeficiency) was initially used when referring to what would eventually be classified as HIV/AIDS.
What's more, some right-wing suggested that AIDS was a punishment from God. Even the Center for Disease Control was complicit in this narrow labeling, initially calling the disease 4H, for homosexuals, Haitians, hemophiliacs and heroin users, as AIDS seemed to be most (if not exclusively) prevalent in these groups. However, most people latched on to the first "H," which probably has something to do with the long-standing resistance to accepting homosexuality in this country, but also around the world.
Last November, the head of U.N.-AIDS (the joint U.N. program tasked with fighting HIV) Michel Sidibé, commented: "stigma, discrimination and bad laws continue to place roadblocks for people living with HIV and people living on the margins [of society]."
In spite of increased awareness, the disease's destructive progress continues (albeit decreasing as time goes by). In 2001, there were 3.1 million new cases of HIV, whereas in 2009 there were 2.6 million.
"We have halted and reversed the epidemic. Fewer people are becoming infected with HIV and fewer people are dying of AIDS," Mr. Sidibé went on to add. The end of the fight is still many years away, but it seems that we're winning.
Treatment involving anti-retroviral drugs is on the rise, especially in the poorest and often worst-hit countries. Over five million people are estimated to be using the new drugs and 80 percent of people carrying HIV in countries where it remains a pandemic are receiving treatment.
It's a start, but there's still a way to go before we meet the U.N.'s objectives of zero new infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS-related deaths.
Jean-Paul Honegger is a member of the Class of 2015.