AIDS​—A Global Killer

SOME medical authorities feel that AIDS is on the verge of becoming a global catastrophe. “AIDS may be the health catastrophe of our lifetime,” claimed The New York Times. Dr. William O’Connor, a microbiologist, said: “What we’re dealing with is probably the greatest plague ever to hit the world.”

Dr. Halfdan Mahler of WHO (World Health Organization) stated: “We stand nakedly in front of a very serious pandemic as mortal as any pandemic there ever has been. . . . Everything is getting worse and worse in AIDS.”

With each passing year, the death toll increases. Soon, the death toll will likely be many times larger. And this may be the case even if not one more person were to be infected with the AIDS virus. Why? Because of the huge number of people who already have the virus, which stays with a person for a lifetime.

How many already have the virus? Some have said ten million worldwide. The report AIDS and the Third World estimates that before long, AIDS “will have infected 50-100 million people.”

That estimate is based on what has happened in Africa, Europe, and North America. But AIDS is also in Latin America and has entered Asia. Denmark’s Politiken observes: “What will happen if and when the epidemic breaks out in serious proportions in South America and Asia? . . . The number of infected will not be as low as 50-100 million.” Even if such figures are exaggerated, without a doubt there are millions of people already infected. And there will be many more millions in the years just ahead.

Also, the vast majority of those who now have the AIDS virus do not know that they have it. They are in apparent good health and yet can pass the virus on to others. So the number of people infected with the AIDS virus is certain to go much higher.

Surgeon general of the United States, C. E. Koop, said: “No previous disease has been at once so mysterious, so fatal, and so resistant to therapy and vaccine development.” He stated: “We do not yet have a cure, nor do we have a vaccine​—and we probably won’t have one generally available before the end of the century. Make no mistake about it. AIDS is fatal and it is spreading.”

AIDS Carriers​—How Many Could Die?

WHEN AIDS was first identified in 1981, health officials estimated that about 5 to 10 percent of those who had the virus would get the disease and die. But the virus proved to have a long incubation period. It may take five years or more for symptoms to become apparent.

Now, with the experience of the past eight years, some officials are estimating that 40 to 50 percent, or more, of those carrying the AIDS virus will develop the disease and die. AIDS and the Third World stated: “A computer model is said to predict that 50% of HIV-carriers will develop full-blown AIDS in five years, and 75% in seven years.” (The term “HIV” comes from the words “Human Immunodeficiency Virus,” the AIDS virus.)

The publication then said: “Many medical experts, and a majority of virologists, now believe that the death toll among HIV-carriers will approach very close to 100%. . . . The belief that all will eventually die is based partly on the fact that as every year goes by, more people who contracted the virus three or four or five years ago do indeed develop the disease. And it is based partly on the studies of the HIV virus itself.” Of course, such views are estimates. Only time will tell if they will be realized in actual fact.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, researcher at the National Institutes of Health in the United States, noted that about 90 percent of individuals who test positive for HIV antibodies have some sort of immune function impairment within five years.

Even if “only” 50 percent die of the 50 million to 100 million virus carriers projected for the near future, it would mean millions of deaths each year sometime in the next decade. One source put the projected death toll in Africa alone as possibly tens of millions.