A Cure for AIDS​—Urgently Needed!

At the Central Market of Lilongwe, Malawi, Grace sells luxury shoes. She appears happy and healthy. Her cheerful smile, though, hides a tragic story.

In 1993, Grace and her husband were overjoyed at the birth of their daughter, Tiyanjane. At the outset, Tiyanjane seemed to be in good health. Yet, she soon stopped gaining weight and contracted one infection after another. At the age of three, Tiyanjane died from AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome).

A few years later, Grace’s husband also began to get sick. One day he collapsed and was taken to the hospital. Doctors could not save him. Grace’s husband of eight years died of AIDS-related complications.

Grace now lives alone in a one-room house in the suburbs of Lilongwe. One might expect that at 30 years of age, Grace would be beginning to rebuild her life. She, however, explains: “I have got HIV so I will not get married or have any more children.”a

SADLY, such experiences are hardly unique in Malawi, where an estimated 15 percent of the population are infected with HIV. At one rural hospital, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper, “bed occupancy is at 150 per cent, and the facility has lost more than 50 per cent of its medical staff” to AIDS. The prevalence of HIV infection is even higher in other countries of sub-Saharan Africa. In 2002 the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) reported: “The average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is currently 47 years. Without AIDS, it would have been 62 years.”

The plague of HIV/AIDS, however, is pandemic, extending far beyond the African continent. UNAIDS estimates that some four million adults in India are infected with HIV, adding: “With the current disease burden, HIV will emerge as the largest cause of adult mortality this decade.” The epidemic is growing fastest in the Commonwealth of Independent States, a federation composed of most republics of the former Soviet Union. One report says that in Uzbekistan, “more HIV cases were reported in 2002 alone compared to the whole of the previous decade.” HIV infection in the United States continues to be a leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 25 and 44.

Awake! first published a series of articles on AIDS in 1986. That year, Dr. H. Mahler, then director of the World Health Organization, warned that some ten million people may have already been infected with HIV. Almost two decades later, the number of HIV cases worldwide has increased to an estimated 42 million, growing at a rate more than ten times the rate of population growth! Experts suggest that the future looks no less sinister. “In the 45 most affected countries,” reports UNAIDS, “it is projected that, between 2000 and 2020, 68 million people will die prematurely as a result of AIDS.”

With such an alarming infection rate, a cure for AIDS has never been more urgently needed. Thus, medical researchers have labored tirelessly to combat HIV. What advances have been made in the fight against this deadly plague? Is it reasonable to hope for an end to AIDS?

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Worldwide, an estimated 42 million people have HIV/AIDS; 2.5 million are children

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INDIA​—Health volunteers receive education about AIDS

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© Peter Barker/Panos Pictures

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BRAZIL​—A social worker comforts a woman suffering from AIDS

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© Sean Sprague/Panos Pictures

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THAILAND​—A volunteer worker cares for a child born with HIV

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© Ian Teh/Panos Pictures

Advances in the Fight Against AIDS

“Never in the history of humans has so much been learned about so complex an illness in so short a time,” writes Dr. Gerald J. Stine in his book AIDS Update 2003. He claims that “the history of HIV/AIDS is one of remarkable scientific achievement.” What has been achieved?

MODERN medical knowledge and expertise have enabled researchers to develop drug combinations that offer new hope to HIV-infected people. Additionally, AIDS education programs have yielded results in several countries. But does the success of such efforts signal the beginning of the end of this deadly epidemic? Can current scientific and educational endeavors halt the spread of AIDS? Consider the following.

Drug Therapy

“A Ray of Hope in the Fight Against Aids,” read the headline in the September 29, 1986, issue of Time magazine. This “ray of hope” was generated by the results of a clinical trial using azidothymidine (AZT), an antiretroviral drug, to treat HIV. Remarkably, HIV patients who took AZT were living longer. Since that time, antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) have prolonged the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. (See the box “What Are ARVs?” on page 7.) How successful have they been in treating HIV infection?

Despite the initial enthusiasm surrounding the release of AZT, Time magazine reported that AIDS researchers “were confident that AZT [was] not the ultimate weapon against AIDS.” They were correct. Some patients were unable to tolerate AZT, so other ARVs were developed. Later, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a combination of ARVs for advanced HIV patients. Combination therapy, which came to involve the taking of three or more antiretroviral drugs, was enthusiastically welcomed by AIDS workers. In fact, at an international conference on AIDS in 1996, one doctor even announced that the drugs may be able to eliminate HIV entirely from the body!

Sadly, within a year it was evident that even strict adherence to the three-drug regimen could not eradicate HIV. Nonetheless, a report by UNAIDS says that “combination ARV therapy has enabled HIV-positive people to live longer, healthier, more productive lives.” In the United States and Europe, for example, ARV use has reduced AIDS deaths by over 70 percent. In addition, several studies have shown that selected ARV treatment can dramatically reduce HIV transmission from an infected pregnant woman to her child.

Yet, millions of HIV patients are denied access to ARVs. Why?

“A Disease of Poverty”

ARV therapy is widely administered in high-income countries. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in some developing lands, only 5 percent of those who need ARV therapy have access to the drugs. United Nations envoys have gone so far as to describe this imbalance as “a serious injustice” and “the grotesque obscenity of the modern world.”

Unequal access to therapy can also exist among citizens of the same country. The Globe and Mail reports that 1 in 3 Canadians who die of AIDS has never been treated with ARVs. Even though the drugs are available free of charge in Canada, certain groups have been overlooked. “Those missing out on proper treatment,” says the Globe, “are those in most desperate need: aboriginals, women and the poor.” The Guardian quoted one African mother who is HIV-positive as saying: “I don’t understand it. Why do these white men who have sex with men get to live and I have to die?” The answer to her question lies in the economics of drug production and distribution.

The average price of a three-drug ARV regimen in the United States and Europe is between $10,000 and $15,000 a year. Even though generic copies of these drug combinations are now being offered in some developing countries at a yearly rate of $300 or less, this is still far beyond the reach of many who have HIV and live where ARVs are needed the most. Dr. Stine sums up the situation this way: “AIDS is a disease of poverty.”

The Business of Making Drugs

Developing generic versions of patented drugs and selling them at reduced prices has not been easy. Strict patent laws in many countries prohibit the unauthorized reproduction of brand-name drugs. “This is an economic war,” says the head of one large pharmaceutical company. Producing generic drugs and selling them to developing countries for a profit, he says, “isn’t fair to people who have discovered those drugs.” Brand-name drug companies also argue that diminishing profits could result in reduced funding for medical research-and-development programs. Others worry that low-cost ARVs destined for developing countries could actually end up on the black market in developed lands.

Proponents of low-cost ARV drugs counter that new drugs can be produced at between 5 and 10 percent of the costs suggested by the pharmaceutical industry. They also say that research and development by private pharmaceutical companies have tended to neglect diseases afflicting poorer countries. Thus, Daniel Berman, coordinator of the Access to Essential Medicines project, states: “For new drugs, there needs to be an internationally-supported enforceable system that reduces prices to affordable levels in developing countries.”

In response to this global need for ARV therapy, WHO has developed what is described as the three-by-five plan to provide ARVs to three million people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2005. “The three-by-five target must not become another unmet UN target,” warned Nathan Ford of Médecins Sans Frontières. “It is only half the number of people with HIV/AIDS estimated to need treatment today and this number will be much greater [by 2005].”

Other Obstacles

Even if enough ARVs were supplied to developing lands, other obstacles would have to be overcome. Some drugs need to be taken with food and clean water, but hundreds of thousands of people in some lands can eat only every other day. ARVs (often 20 or more pills daily) need to be taken at a certain time each day, but many patients do not own a timepiece. Drug combinations need to be adjusted according to a patient’s condition. But there is a critical shortage of physicians in many lands. Clearly, providing ARV therapy to developing countries will be a difficult hurdle to surmount.

Even patients in developed lands face challenges in using combination therapy. Research reveals that failure to take all prescribed drugs at scheduled times is alarmingly common. This may lead to drug resistance. Such drug-resistant strains of HIV can be transmitted to others.

Dr. Stine points to another challenge faced by HIV patients. “The paradox of HIV treatment,” he says, “is that sometimes the cure feels worse than the disease, especially when treatment begins before symptoms arise.” HIV patients on ARVs commonly suffer from side effects including diabetes, fat redistribution, high cholesterol, and decreased bone density. Some side effects are life-threatening.

Prevention Efforts

How successful have prevention efforts been in slowing the spread of AIDS and changing high-risk behaviors? Extensive AIDS education campaigns in Uganda during the 1990’s cut HIV prevalence rates in that country from an estimated 14 percent to approximately 8 percent in 2000. Similarly, Senegal’s efforts to inform its citizens about the risk of HIV infection have helped that country to maintain HIV prevalence rates below 1 percent among the adult population. Such results are encouraging.

On the other hand, AIDS education has not been so successful in other countries. A 2002 survey of 11,000 young Canadians revealed that half the students in their first year of high school believed that AIDS can be cured. According to a British study conducted the same year, 42 percent of boys between 10 and 11 years of age had never heard of HIV or AIDS. Yet, even youths who are aware of HIV and AIDS and the lack of a cure have grown complacent. “For many young people,” says one doctor, “HIV has become just one of the many problems in their lives, like if they are going to get a good meal, who they are going to live with, whether they are going to school.”

Not surprisingly, then, WHO states that “focusing on young people is likely to be the most effective approach to confronting the epidemic, particularly in high prevalence countries.” How can youths be helped to act on warnings they have received regarding AIDS? And is it realistic to hope for a cure?

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Last year 2 percent of those in Africa needing ARVs received them, compared with 84 percent in the Americas

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What Are ARVs?a

In a healthy person, helper T cells stimulate or activate the immune system to attack infections. HIV particularly targets these helper T cells. It uses the cells to replicate itself, weakening and destroying helper T cells until the immune system is severely compromised. Antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) disrupt this replication process.

Currently, four main types of ARVs are administered. Nucleoside analogues and non-nucleoside analogues prevent HIV from copying itself onto a person’s DNA. Protease inhibitors block a specific protease enzyme in infected cells from reconstructing the virus and producing more HIV. Fusion inhibitors aim to prevent HIV from entering cells. By suppressing HIV replication, ARVs can slow the progression from HIV infection to AIDS, dubbed the most severe clinical form of HIV disease.

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KENYA​—A doctor instructs an AIDS patient about ARV treatment

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© Sven Torfinn/Panos Pictures

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KENYA​—An AIDS patient receives her ARV medicine at the hospital

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© Sven Torfinn/Panos Pictures

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Women and AIDS

Women now make up 50 percent of adults living with HIV/AIDS

In 1982, when women were diagnosed with AIDS, it was thought that they must have been infected through intravenous drug use. Soon, it was realized that women could become infected through normal sexual intercourse and that they are at special risk of contracting HIV. Worldwide, women now make up 50 percent of adults living with HIV/AIDS. “The epidemic disproportionately affects women and adolescent girls who are socially, culturally, biologically and economically more vulnerable, and who shoulder the burden of caring for the sick and dying,” reports UNAIDS.

Why is the growth of the disease among women a special concern to AIDS workers? HIV-infected women often face more discrimination than men, especially in some developing lands. If a woman is pregnant, the health of her child is endangered; if she already has children, caring for them becomes a challenge, particularly for a single mother. Further, comparatively little is known about the unique characteristics of HIV-infected women and their clinical care.

Certain cultural factors make the situation especially dangerous for women. In many countries women are not expected to discuss sexuality, and they risk abuse if they refuse sex. The men commonly have many sexual partners and unknowingly transmit HIV to them. Some African men have sexual relations with younger women to avoid HIV or in the false belief that sex with virgins can cure AIDS. No wonder WHO states: “Interventions must be aimed at men (as well as at women) if women are to be protected.”

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PERU​—An HIV-positive mother with her HIV-negative daughter

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© Annie Bungeroth/Panos Pictures

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THAILAND​—As part of their education, students visit an AIDS patient

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© Ian Teh/Panos Pictures

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KENYA​—A meeting with members of the organization Women Living With AIDS

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© Sven Torfinn/Panos Pictures

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Myths About AIDS

◼ HIV-infected people look sick. “On average, it takes about 10 to 12 years for someone infected with HIV to develop AIDS,” says Dr. Gerald J. Stine. “During this time, the HIV-infected will show few if any recognizable symptoms, but they are able to infect other people.”

◼ AIDS is a homosexual disease. In the early 1980’s, AIDS was initially identified as a homosexual disease. Today, however, heterosexual intercourse is the primary mode of HIV transmission in much of the world.

◼ Oral sex is “safe sex.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “numerous studies have demonstrated that oral sex can result in the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.” The risk of HIV transmission through oral sex is not as high as through other sexual practices. Nevertheless, the practice has become so prevalent that some doctors expect it to become a significant route for transmitting HIV.

◼ There is a cure for AIDS. Although antiretroviral therapy can, in some patients, slow the progression from HIV to AIDS, there is currently no vaccine or cure.

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CZECH REPUBLIC​—A blood test for AIDS, which is now treatable but not curable

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© Liba Taylor/Panos Pictures

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ZAMBIA​—Two young HIV-positive girls await their medicine

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© Pep Bonet/Panos Pictures

When Will AIDS End?

From an early age, youths are bombarded with sexual messages that encourage promiscuity. Intravenous drug use, another significant HIV route, is also widespread. Considering today’s pervasive climate of irresponsible behavior, you may wonder if AIDS will ever end.

HEALTH professionals aptly point to behavioral changes as a vital strategy in the fight against AIDS. “Each and every generation of young people,” says a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “needs comprehensive, sustained health information and interventions that help them develop life-long skills for avoiding behaviors that could lead to HIV infection. Such comprehensive programs should include the involvement of parents as well as educators.”

Clearly, parents need to educate their children about these dangers before they are misinformed by their peers or others. This is not always easy. But it can save your child’s life. Informing children about sex and drugs need not take away their innocence. It can actually protect them from losing their innocence.

Parental Training Is Vital

Among God’s ancient people, parents were expected to teach their children about sexual relations and how to protect their health. Interestingly, the laws of the ancient Israelites included clear moral guidelines as well as practices that protected them from infection. (Leviticus 18:22, 23; 19:29; Deuteronomy 23:12, 13) How were these laws to be taught to the people? Jehovah God told the Israelites: “These words that I am commanding you today must prove to be on your heart.” Parents first had to understand the benefits of adhering to these laws and the consequences for failing to do so. Then, they were instructed: “You must inculcate them in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.”​—Deuteronomy 6:6, 7.

One dictionary defines “inculcate” as “to teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions.” Obviously, time is involved. Parents who set aside time to teach their sons and daughters about the dangers of drug abuse and illicit sex certainly stand a better chance of seeing their children avoid types of behavior that can lead to contracting HIV and other diseases.a

Comfort for HIV/AIDS Sufferers

Prevention efforts may be of little comfort to the millions of people who have contracted HIV/AIDS. Besides suffering the physical effects of the disease itself, they are often stigmatized and encounter rejection because of their condition. How so? A common, yet erroneous, belief is that casual contact can transmit HIV. Fear of contracting HIV/AIDS is understandable, since it is both communicable and fatal. Some have allowed their fear of the disease to become an irrational fear of people with it. Sufferers have been refused medical treatment, expelled from church, and even violently attacked.

Some people have contended that AIDS is a curse from God on the wicked. Admittedly, adhering to Bible standards on sexual morality, drug use, and blood would have kept many sufferers from contracting the disease. (Acts 15:28, 29; 2 Corinthians 7:1) Nonetheless, the Scriptures show that sickness is not evidence of God’s punishment for a specific sin. On the contrary, the Bible states: “With evil things God cannot be tried nor does he himself try anyone.” (James 1:13; John 9:1-3) A person who has HIV or AIDS because of failure to adhere to Scriptural standards but who has changed his behavior can be assured that he is not abandoned by God.

God’s empathy and love for the chronically ill were evident when his Son, Jesus, came to earth. Encountering a leper during his travels, Jesus “was moved with pity, and he stretched out his hand and touched him.” Jesus exercised his miraculous power and healed the leper. (Mark 1:40-42) Jesus did not look down on people who were ill. The love he displayed for them was a perfect reflection of his heavenly Father’s love.​—Luke 10:22.

A Cure for AIDS​—Soon!

Jesus’ miraculous healings do more than reassure us of God’s love. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ now rules as a heavenly King. (Revelation 11:15) His ministry on earth showed that he has the power and the willingness to cure any malady afflicting mankind. That is exactly what he will do.

Bible prophecy assures us that soon “no resident will say: ‘I am sick.’” (Isaiah 33:24) Despite the failure of mankind to stop the spread of AIDS or to provide effective treatment for all, we can be confident that AIDS will be abolished. “Bless Jehovah, O my soul,” King David said, “and do not forget all his doings, Him who is forgiving all your error, who is healing all your maladies.”​—Psalm 103:2, 3.

When will this take place? What requirements does God have for those who hope to experience such blessings? We invite you to contact Jehovah’s Witnesses to learn more about the Bible’s wonderful promise.

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Bible prophecy assures us that soon “no resident will say: ‘I am sick’”

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Teaching your children about sex and drug abuse can protect them

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Jesus’ ability and willingness to heal the sick showed what he will do in the future