The Problem

Decades of intense united effort to educate the public against contracting and spreading the HIV virus has failed.

HIV/AIDS is not under control in the U.S., nor across the globe. The numbers continue to rise, and the shifting profile is unsettling. The UN reports in 2009 that globally, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death of women of reproductive age. Children also suffer disproportionately as they may be born with AIDS, lose their parents to it, or contract it themselves as they enter their teens. A click of the AIDS Clock shows the shared consequences of continued infection: we all bear the worry, loss and financial burdens of AIDS.

The terrible truth: 36.1 million people have AIDS. Every minute that passes, 4 of them will die. So far, 45 million children have perished. 3% of Washington, DC has AIDS – that’s the same % of people who have cancer. Of the 1.3 million living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S., 25% are unaware of their infection and 38% are diagnosed late, only one year before developing clinical AIDS. These untreated individuals have high viral counts and cause over half of the 56,000 new infections each year.

Early diagnosis allows treatment and a life expectancy of another 20 to 50 years. Most persons who are aware of their infection take steps to reduce infecting others, and their lower viral counts also decrease transmission to others. The CDC now recommends that everyone 13 – 64 be tested for HIV. There is a strong trend toward complying with this recommendation in hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities. We know now that there is a brief time period that patients, once tested, will wait to receive results. The initial screens are therefore most effectively done through rapid testing methods.