Published December 6, 2010, last updated on March 20, 2013
A new book previewed on World AIDS Day by the world’s leading AIDS experts as part of the aids2031 initiative, lays out a new approach for addressing the challenges of AIDS. These challenges include better science, smarter public policy, more efficient and effective programs, adequate funding, and strategies for addressing the blind spots in existing efforts.
There have been many scientific advances in AIDS in its 30-year history, including greatly expanded access to prevention and treatment with scientific breakthroughs, unprecedented global funding, and a new model for human rights and public health policy. Most important, millions of lives have been saved. Many no longer see AIDS as a global emergency threatening everyone in every country and at every level of society.
But, the book “AIDS: Taking a Long-Term View” stresses that AIDS is not over. AIDS has become hyperendemic in some countries, such as in Southern Africa, and has largely become concentrated in the most marginalized communities. Over 25 million people have died from AIDS since it was first reported in 1981, and more than 33.3 million are living with HIV today. Instead, AIDS is a generations-long challenge that can only be effectively addressed with long-term thinking, planning and investing.
In an effort to define a new path in the fight against AIDS, the book highlights the need for new prevention tools, better and more efficient treatment, better understanding of the social drivers of HIV transmission, and better evidence of what works and what doesn’t and why. As leaders in the field work toward improving our knowledge, it’s imperative that they make much better use of the information and tools before them. Without more efficient prevention efforts, new HIV infections will continue to grow; without more effective treatment strategies, people will continue to die.
The book is the result of the work of aids2031, an initiative of UNAIDS, that looked at where we are today, and considering what need to be done better, or differently, to dramatically reduce the number of HIV infections and AIDS deaths by 2031—50 years after AIDS was first reported. Duke Global Health Institute Founding Director Michael Merson served on the initiative’s steering committee and co-chaired the Science and Technology Working Group with DGHI Board of Advisor member Chris Elias of PATH.
“AIDS: Taking a Long-Term View” will be published by FT Press this month and available for purchase in January.
Defining a new path in the fight against AIDS
