Editor's note: Dr. Anthony S. Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci: Progress has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but "our work is just beginning." (CNN) -- When we commemorated the first World AIDS Day on December 1, 1988, we had little to celebrate. The number of reported AIDS cases in the United States was nearing 80,000 and rising rapidly. Untold thousands more in this country were living with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. Globally, AIDS cases already had been reported from more than 135 countries. An AIDS tsunami clearly was looming, but we had few defenses at our disposal.
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Dr. Anthony S. Fauci: Access to HIV services, medical care a challenge in poor areas
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Fauci: Preventive HIV vaccine is best hope for halting spread of HIV/AIDS
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Medications improved prognosis for people living with HIV by increasing life spans
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Prevention approaches, education, testing, counseling, condoms deployed
First, even in the face of a world economic crisis, the global community must scale up the delivery of proven @placeholder therapies and prevention services.
We must solve the mystery of how to prompt the human body to produce a protective immune response against @placeholder, which natural infection with the virus seems unable to do.