Threat of AIDS monster

THE idea that the world is losing the battle against HIV/AIDS is a terrifying one. It conjures up a nightmarish scenario of suffering and death not unlike the plagues which decimated the world’s population many centuries ago. But where the pandemic of bubonic plague known as the Black Death devastated the population of Europe and Asia in the 14 century when medical science was still in its infancy, the AIDS epidemic, like a diabolical terminator, is ravaging global societies at a time when science has reached the sophistication of actually tampering with the genetic codes of life. All of the diseases of more recent times, such as tuberculosis, malaria, small pox, polio and leprosy, have been conquered thanks to the advancement of medical science. And just when we were beginning to rejoice over our victory against these contagious demons, along came HIV and AIDS which are now proving to be the most ruthless and catastrophic of them all.

According to the latest statistics, some 42 million people are living with this deadly virus, concentrated largely in the developing countries where masses of the poor indulge in casual sex as their main or only form of  recreation or entertainment. During the year now ending, some five million have become infected. And we are told that half of those contracting the virus do so before they are 25 and die by the disease before they are 35. This horrendous death toll must justify UN Secretary General Kofi Anan’s angry declaration that the war against AIDS is being lost. The fact is that because of the legal restraint of patents and the selfishness of the major pharmaceutical companies, the antiretroviral drugs which retard the on-set of AIDS have not been reaching the poor affected societies because they are too costly. Only now, thanks to the initiative of an Indian manufacturer, generic forms of these drugs are being produced and are being acquired by developing country governments. Even so, it is doubtful whether sufficient quantities of these drugs can be delivered to the large masses of HIV patients in Africa, India and Asia to have an impact on the present death rate. But there are other disturbing aspects of this pandemic, as Prof Courtenay Bartholomew pointed out in a World Aids Day address last Sunday. For one thing, the long term toxic effects of antiretroviral drugs are not known and, for another, the signs are there that patients are developing a resistance to them. In the best centres of treatment in the US, the stage has now been reached where between 35 and 65 percent of HIV-infected patients have developed resistance to all the antiretroviral drugs available to date.

Indeed, Prof Bartholonew warned that if developing countries do not install the required scientific and professional infrastructure for dealing with the disease and if patients do not adhere to their treatment schedule “a drug resistant strain of the virus will soon emerge in the Third World which will decimate a large portion of mankind.” While the incidence of AIDS in TT is disturbingly high, the problem is certainly not unmanageable. The country is fortunate in having a fully responsive government and an up-to-date testing and treatment facility in the Medical Research Foundation headed by Prof Bartholomew. On Monday, Prime Minister Manning announced that antiretroviral drugs will be made available to all HIV/AIDS patients in TT free of charge and that the National Strategic Plan for the disease will be fully implemented. Maybe the country’s business community would want to make their contribution to the effort at keeping this monster at bay.