STOPPING HIV

30 years ago HIV was first discovered. Since then over 30 million people have died from the disease. This disease continues to spreads daily. Approximately 7000 people per day contract the disease world wide.

There has been many people that have lived with HIV for many years, Magic Johnson. This is due to the accessablility to very expensive anti-retroviral drugs. But finally a man is "cured" from his HIV disease.

It is reported that Timothy Brown suffered from leukemia and HIV when he received a bone marrow stem cell transplant in Germany in 2007. Th transplant came from a caucasian male that was immune to HIV. Approximately 1% of all caucasians are immune to the disease.

After the stem cell transplant Mr. Brown's HIV went away. According to the Dr's he has no replicating virus and is taking no medications to do so.

Now knowing that bone marrow stem cell transplants are very risky and even fatal and that doing this procedure for the 33.3 million people infected with HIV is impossible. It raises the question as to what are we doing exactly to eradicate this disease?

The ARV (anti-retroviral) drugs costs approximatley 13 billion dollars a year to develop and they are suppose to double that price in the years to come.

It was surprising to me to find out that the country having the most success in fighting this disease is not the United States, but a South American country. It is Brazil.

You see the government in Brazil is fully committed to eradicating HIV and AIDS from their country. Brazil started very aggressive national campaigns for high risk groups, this has contributed to the decline in HIV in that country.

Because these programs targeted the high risk groups, such as gay men and women, the numbers of HIV people in thse groups has declined significantly. In 1996 over 3000 gay men were affected by HIV in Brazil. In 2009 the number of reported cases in Brazil was only 647. Among the gay women the number in 1996 was over 7000 and just over 2000 in 2009 in Brazil. Now those are real results to be proud of.

In contrast, the groups in the United States that are the highest risk are African Americans and gay men. These groups continue to rise in the United States. In 1998 there were over 20,000 African Americans reported to be infected with HIV. This number increased to over 21,500 in 2009 in the United States for African Americans. In 1998 over 17,000 gay men were reported to be infected with HIV in the United States, this number did drop to over 14,000 reported cases in 2009. At least in this group that is an improvement, but not like what Brazil is seeing.

How is Brazil doing this? It is doing it because their government is dedicating money to stopping this disease. In 1999 Brazil was only dedicating roughly 700,000 reais (a real is worth .63 cents in American currency). In 2007 the government had raised the the amount of money it dedicated to stopping HIV to over 1.3 billion reais. The United States has risen its amount at a much slower rate.

Brazil also does abetter job at providing drugs that actually work. In 1996 the Brazilian government passed a law mandating the universal provision of anti-retroviral medication to those infected. In contrast, the U.S. has fallen short in providing access to the same drugs.

Brazil has created new programs to fund cities that were/are in need of funding to help fight the disease. The government provides monthly grants to cities that demonstrate they need help with the fight against HIV. In the United States Congress and the CDC have yet to create any new fiscal programs to assist such cities. The last program the U.S. created was in 1993.

Brazil goes as far as to invite leaders from the high risk groups to help devise policies and to add input about health care. While the U.S. government has reached out to high risk leaders, they never incorporated them the way Brazil has.

The lesson to learn from this much smaller South American country is to fully protect its people from a deadly and fast spreading disease. This not only advances their health in their country, but aids in its government's image and influence among its people.

Can the United States really say that?

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