‘Much More Needs To Be Done’ in Fight Against HIV/AIDS Worldwide, Opinion Piece Says
Both good and bad news on the HIV/AIDS pandemic emerged during last week's World AIDS Day, John Hughes, editor and chief operating officer of the Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, writes in a Christian Science Monitor opinion piece. The good news is that apathy about AIDS in many countries has "suddenly" disappeared and has been replaced with action; more money is flowing to countries that need it most; and the cost of drugs to fight the disease is decreasing, Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, says. However, the bad news is that the problem of HIV/AIDS "remains immense," he says. Hughes notes that while the "challenge" of HIV/AIDS in Africa "is most acute," the disease continues to spread in large countries such as India and China. In addition, the disease's effects are "rampant broadly" among "the poverty-stricken" and "innocent children" who have lost their parents to AIDS-related diseases, Hughes says. Although the "enormity of the challenge is prompting new initiatives," such as public HIV/AIDS treatment programs in South Africa and India, "the world's financial response has been 'woefully inadequate,'" according to a United Nations report released last week, Hughes says, concluding, "Clearly in the war against AIDS, much has been done, but much more needs to be done" (Hughes, Christian Science Monitor, 12/10).
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