Six a minute

Sitting down to write: 10:11 pm. Global AIDS deaths since 1 January 2004 as I begin to write: 2 ' 962 ' 918

P VIROT/WHO

As many of us see HIV/AIDS become a chronic disease akin to diabetes and hypertension in our lands, much of the world sees it ravage entire generations and communities. As the rates stabilise and begin to fall in many of our countries, other places watch the virus spread like wildfire. As future doctors, some of us will tell a person with HIV/AIDS, “Yes, we can get you started on antiretroviral therapy that should allow you to continue living a normal life.” Sadly, others will have no other choice but to tell these same patients, “Sorry, go home and live your last days in peace, for I nothing to give you.” As we sit in a world divided by wealth and power, AIDS exploits and exposes the inequalities, one innocent person at a time.

If you are reading this, I urge you to take three simple steps to understand the HIV/AIDS epidemic and in doing so become an agent for change.

Learn about HIV/AIDS in your home city, country, or continent and also in the world; educate yourself about the disease and its demographics. Find someone living with the disease, and try to understand what effect this has on their life. Get yourself tested for HIV to gain appreciation of the stigma associated with this process.

Educate on the health issues by teaching children or adults who are at high risk about the disease. Educate those around you on the social justice issues that HIV raises, or more correctly, exposes.

Fight for those in your country who endure discrimination and human rights violations because of their HIV status. Fight for those in other countries who have no access to medicines. Pressure your government to stand with those impoverished countries, which are doing their best to fight the disease.

In medicine, we are expected to focus on each patient, working in the one on one realm of health. However, let this not blind us from our larger responsibility towards the issues that affect entire populations. Take the power and prestige bestowed upon you as a medical officer and channel it towards those lacking a voice—the poorest and powerless—knowing that lifting them up is necessary for alleviating their corresponding burden as the poorest in health. Yes, this is a big task when you consider the sheer numbers involved in the HIV epidemic. But, remember this—as easily as we have allowed HIV/AIDS to spread through our planet, we are equally capable of wiping it out. A fancy “AIDS CURE” pill or immunisation? Sure those would help, but AIDS teaches us that far more important than solving the biochemical riddle of how to kill the virus, we must begin to solve the gross inequalities of this world that allow such a virus to devastate and destroy.

Finished writing: 11:29pm. Global AIDS deaths since 1 January 2004: 2 ' 963 ' 344 Deaths in the hour and 18 minutes it took me to write this: 426 (6 a minute)