World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day. I encourage everyone to show support and solidaratory for the people affected by this disease by wearing a ribbon or saying a word. This is possibly the most devastating infectious disease to face humankind. Recent advances in antiviral treatment have helped improve life conditions for many people, but this is not a cure! Furthermore, not everyone can afford or access these important drugs. What we need to stop this pandemic is a vaccine. Perferably, one that can be made inexpensively and one that does not need to be stored frozen, so it can be easily shipped to the places it's needed most - places like Africa, where in some regions, 20% of people are infected with HIV. Worldwide, over 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. Over 3 million have died.

Some of you may not know why I care so deeply about this disease. I work in a research group that studies HIV/AIDS. Our ultimate goal is to help discover a vaccine for HIV. We specifically have a collaboration with the people of Nairobi, Kenya. For twenty years, we have been studying a group of female sex workers. Some of them, despite many years of active sex work, remain uninfected, but we know they have had over a hundred exposures to HIV. Some of them are infected, but remain healthy for many years, in the absence of antiviral treatment. We believe that these women offer hope to the world, that there is a possibility to finding a vaccine, to solving this world problem.