Commemorating World Aids Day

Today is World Aids Day, a day to commemorate the worldwide fight against the AIDS virus and bring attention to methods to reduce the new infections and illnesses due to the virus. This year marks thirty years since the first diagnoses of the HIV virus. This year’s theme is “Getting to Zero,” which is focused on reducing the number of new infections to zero, reducing AIDS-related deaths to zero and reducing AIDS-related discrimination to zero as well.

In a recent speech, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stated that the United States was committed to ensuring that the next generation be the first “AIDS-free generation.” She predicted that the disease could be halted due to new strategies, such as “treatment as prevention,” which provides antiretroviral drugs to almost everyone with the virus, which has prevented transmission in clinical trials.

In order to make this happen, further resources are needed to provide more treatments and increase prevention strategies. In a recent speech at Yale University, Stephen Lewis, co-director of AIDS-Free World and Ambassador to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, bluntly called the lack of funding akin to murder. He stated that funders, largely, have not followed through on promised funding, leading to gaps in treatment and prevention. He suggests that this lack of global funding is due to the fact that AIDS has continued to have a greater effect on those in Africa. He explicitly asked whether funders regard Africans as “casually expendable.” Lewis even asks whether in the future, a similar scenario could lead to international criminal charges.

According to Secretary Clinton’s remarks, the United States and President Obama’s administration have recommitted to fighting the spread of the AIDS virus. If so, Lewis’s speech underscores the importance of this issue and the ongoing need for greater commitment on the part of Western governments. As part of that commitment, the administration should also use its capital to encourage other countries to follow through on their funding commitments. Lewis’s remarks, while controversial, point to the ongoing issues of race, gender and class and their effect on the funding available to combat the virus worldwide. Pointing out these discrepancies is important, not only to address funders directly, but also to inform, educate and increase international scrutiny. All of these strategies are important in continuing the movement to treat and prevent the AIDS virus.