THE aphorism, “No news is good news”, was never more apposite than for AIDS. In the 1980s and 1990s, when HIV, the virus that causes it, was on the rampage, AIDS was seldom out of the headlines. Now, it is seldom in them. Antiretroviral drugs have all but abolished death-by-AIDS in the rich world—and, though that is by no means true in poorer places, particularly some in sub-Saharan Africa, even there mortality is falling fast. Having no headlines at all, however, might suggest that the problem is over. It isn’t. And to remind people of that, UNAIDS, the international agency charged with combating the disease, publishes from time to time reports that are designed to generate a few.
The latest such came out on November 24th, in anticipation of World AIDS Day on December 1st. It shows that, by and large, things are going to plan. Though 1.2m people died from AIDS in 2014, that number was down from 1.3m the previous year and from a peak of 2m in 2005. This fall in the death rate, combined with continued new infections, does mean the number of those infected has increased, to 36.9m from 36.2m in 2013. But the actual number of new infections is...Continue reading
Source: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1HjN7tD
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