Posted on April 21, 2014
Source: The Baltimore Sun
By Robert Gallo
Wednesday is the 30-year anniversary of the day my colleagues and I reported that a new retrovirus, now known as HIV, was the agent causing AIDS. We also announced the development of an effective HIV blood test and the capacity to continuously produce the virus so that drugs could be tested. Since then, basic science has driven a better understanding of how HIV infects humans, resulting in the development of effective antiretroviral therapy (ART). Last summer the National AIDS Treatment Advocacy Project reported that "a 20-year-old HIV-positive individual on ART in the U.S. or Canada is expected to live into their early 70s, a life expectancy approaching that in the general population."
There are still areas where much progress needs to be made, however, particularly in our nation's inner cities, where a large share of the HIV/AIDS burden falls heavily on people of color. According to a 2010 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report, African Americans comprised 86 percent of newly diagnosed infections in Baltimore City and 78 percent in Washington D.C. Nationally 20 percent of people living with HIV infection are undiagnosed, and 75 percent are either not receiving treatment, are wrongly treated or are not taking their medications, according to the CDC.
Over these last three decades I've frequently been asked if I believe we can eradicate HIV and stop the epidemic. I believe the answer is yes — if the public and private sectors begin to invest more resources in research, treatment and in reaching people at risk.
We are ethically obliged to diagnose and treat HIV/AIDS, but there is also an economic advantage to doing so. Currently the cost of treating a person with HIV over a lifetime is approximately $370,000. One cannot begin to fathom the cost of not treating patients — including numerous visits to the emergency room and long hospital stays.
