Even South Africa, with the most advanced healthcare on the continent, has no hope of coping with this huge epidemic by conventional means. Overall, the upward trend is worrying. The new generation of sexually active teenagers missed the 1980's publicity campaigns aimed at raising awareness and a recent survey showed that one in ten British people under 24 think there is already a cure for aids. The progression of HIV as an infectious agent makes it especially elusive to medical control. On arrival in the human body the HIV virus takes three to four hours to alert the host's immune system, which produces killer T-cells in response.
Research continues into preventative vaccines.
You have to consider it as a fatal illness but we are looking at indefinite survival rates as long as we can drive the virus down. Patients commonly take 20 capsules or more each day, and despite side effects, which include skin rash and lypodistrophy, their health remains intact. Treatment comes at a price. In the UK it costs 9,000 a year. A recent announcement by five major drug companies, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Glaxo Wellcome, Merck, Boehringer Ingelheim and Roche, that they will reduce their drug prices for developing nations has done little to console doctors who see their patients die for lack of funds.