AIDS: Discovered 30 years ago today

I can remember working on the Medical Unit as a brand new nurse years ago.

I recall taking care of several elderly people that had similar symptoms.....very curious grouping of symptoms.   Inexplicably they were wasting away to nothing, becoming weaker and weaker.

We were forever cleaning up their extreme diarrhea, giving medications and administering tests for an off and on fever, swollen lymph glands,  mouth ulcers and skin lesions.    Unsightly bruises spread over their bodies....  and a hacking cough wracked their skinny frames.

Then came the confusion....which made the cleanup impossible.

We looked after these patients in in an era where the medical world had no idea what we were seeing and lax about the proper disposal of needles and no such thing as universal precautions never mind standard precautions.

Once identified, retrospectively we could see that perhaps those patients we had looked after had contracted the disease from the tainted blood supply - blood transfusions given before there was screening for it.

It had spread rapidly throughout the world, striking a histrionic fear in the hearts of everyone, causing those affected to become the new pariahs of society.

Thankfully, we have come a long way since then.

To date, AIDS has killed 25 million persons.

Presently, 33 million are infected - with 2.6 new infections each year.

In our world it is now considered a chronic illness rather than a death sentence. 

Sadly, in Africa, it is not.

Perhaps it is time to concentrate on giving them at least a chance to live - in a world where women don't often have the means to protect themselves, where children are born with it due to the expense and lack of medication for their mothers and education about preventing AIDS is lagging.