AIDS challenge persists globally, here at home

RECENT REPORTS remind South Carolinians that the struggle against AIDS goes on, and more effort and resources are required to meet the challenge. Other events surge to the forefront of the public’s attention, but the vital work of containing this epidemic, and helping its victims, goes on, worldwide and here in South Carolina.

The biennial international conference on HIV/AIDS, held last week in Toronto, re-emphasized some of what the world knows about the fight. Patients in industrialized countries have access to potent medications that can block the HIV attack on the body, while Third World countries struggle to provide these drugs. When those countries can offer them, they have to wrestle with their limited health networks to get the drugs administered — especially to children.

The conference also was warned about a new strain of tuberculosis, discovered in South Africa, that is impervious to drugs. TB already had surged back as a public health threat, attacking patients with systems weakened by AIDS and becoming more resistant to drugs. Now, officials are trying to head off the spread of a TB strain that is, right now, untreatable.

Here in South Carolina, a coalition is trying to convince state leaders that the present resources allocated to the HIV/AIDS problem are not equal to the task.

The state’s AIDS problem is an enormous one: South Carolina ranks 10th among the states in its infection rate per capita. The virus has been especially damaging in the African-American community: 74 percent of the recently diagnosed HIV cases have been found there.

Given the state’s HIV/AIDS situation, the assertion that not enough state money has been spent to provide vital medication to those who can’t afford it is a serious one. Advocates for greater spending point to some stark facts: The state budget contributed $500,000 toward a program helping to provide anti-HIV medications; North Carolina spent $12 million. A shortfall in funding has created a waiting list for help. As of last week, the list had 144 people on it.

That’s 144 people too many. In our prosperous society, no one should have to wait for the medicines that control the damage that HIV does to the immune system. Forcing people to wait is more than cruel; it puts off a chance to limit the disease’s damage.

Above and beyond the obvious moral reasons to get this right, there is also a financial one: Those who get sicker while waiting for medications often will require more care, even hospitalization, in the long run. And we will all foot the bill through taxes or insurance.

Legislators need to review the programs that fund HIV treatment in South Carolina; if a lack of state dollars is causing people to wait for medications, that must be fixed.

Globally or in South Carolina, the challenges posed by HIV are similar. It’s not enough to develop a treatment for the disease. That treatment has to be available to all, not a select few. And the health care structure has to be able to get people their medication and, often, coach them on how to take it and stay healthy. While the response to AIDS has made great strides in the past two decades, we are far from prevailing over — or even stemming — this epidemic.