It's World AIDS Day. Not so long ago celebrities shied away from AIDS awareness and society ignored the problem that was devastating many developing countries. The 1980s saw the change in perception of the disease shift from existing in gay communities to it wiping out a country's populous, infecting famous athletes, singers and women.
Then came Bono and a rampage of celebrity activists willing to raise attention to AIDS. Things changed. In an unexpected reversal, recently I read that AIDs related diseases were overshadowing some of the more curable and treatable illnesses such as diarrhea that kill millions of children every year in Africa. The AIDS problem seems to be at a low ebb from its original toll.
However, before this year's change in leadership in South Africa, the nation with the worst AIDS related death record, South Africa continued to uphold political obstacles to drug treatments for HIV/AIDS infected individuals. Worse, their president outright denied scientific fact like the link between HIV and AIDs. Instead, he suggested sick people take herbs and garlic to cure them.
A couple years ago, at a rally for then presidential candidate Barack Obama, I met a middle aged woman excited about the future and change. She was the matriarch of an interracial family and she had lived with AIDS for the past 20 years. Within her story I realized that AIDS could change, not only can we live in a world where it isn't a death sentence, but we already do live in a world where medicine can prolong lives beyond what we thought capable 20 years ago. What will it take to make it happen worldwide?
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