The virus can only survive outside the human body for a few seconds. It lives in blood, semen, breast milk and other body fluids and is passed through open sores, cuts or wounds and through direct injection of blood with infected needles. While animal research is constantly in the forefront of clinical studies, only human beings can get AIDSwhich nearly disqualifies primate and laboratory rat research as the logical pathway. Chimpanzees do not experience symptoms from the human AIDS strain. In the history of the human race, AIDS is nowhere near to being the world's most deadly disease.
Influenza kills thousands each year and can be passed on by a simple sneeze.
An outbreak killed 20 million people in the winter of 1918-19 as reported by Reuters. The CDC says that malaria still threatens more than 40 percent of the world's population across Africa, Asia and Latin America, killing between 1.5 and 2.7 million people every year. AIDS is an unwanted part of our world culture, but with hope and unified determination, it may one day lose its momentum and losen its grip on our lives.