A Breathtaking Aspiration for AIDS

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It sounds too good to be true, and it may prove to be so in the real world, but researchers at the World Health Organization have come up with a suggestion to drastically reduce the transmission of AIDS and virtually halt the widening epidemic in Africa within a decade.

On this 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, after repeated failures to create an effective vaccine, the provocative “thought experiment” at least lifted our spirits.

The analysts developed a mathematical model to predict what would happen if most adults and adolescents were tested every year for the virus that causes AIDS and those who tested positive were immediately treated with antiretroviral drugs instead of waiting until their immune systems were depressed, as is now policy.

The results, described last week in The Lancet, a British medical journal, were remarkable. Transmission of the virus from infected individuals to others could be driven so low as to be nearly eliminated within a decade, largely because the drugs would drastically reduce the amount of virus in their blood and genital secretions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion/01mon3.html?ref=opinion

Huge undertaking to try. Huge benefits.