THIS BLOG IS ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIO CAST

A truly modern epidemic, HIV/AIDS has hit every continent on the planet and affects nearly 40 million people worldwide. Today, we celebrate World AIDS Day by commemorating those who have died from AIDS-related illness, showing support for people living with HIV, and fighting for a cure. 

World AIDS Day was first observed in 1988 and takes place on December 1^st each year. The first ever global health day, the path to acceptance and scientific advancements towards HIV/AIDS hasn’t been easy. Over the past four decades, the epidemic has changed enormously and so, too, has the global agenda. Universal testing is the main key to halting the number of new infections. Scientific advances in HIV treatment have prolonged lives and, in many cases, even made the virus undetectable. But this battle is far from over. 

40 years ago, in the spring of 1981, a mystery illness began exploding across the gay communities of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Men were inexplicably coming down with cancer and other mysterious illnesses. Many of them would be dead within weeks. As more cases were confirmed across the Atlantic, it become known as the ‘gay plague’. It wasn’t until 1982 that this mysterious plague earned a name: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. The following year, scientists uncovered the culprit behind AIDS. It was a virus, which they eventually called HIV: the human immunodeficiency virus. 

And the disease wasn’t just targeting homosexuals. Anyone could be infected through blood, sexual intercourse, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. However, word was to slow get out and ignorance about HIV remained rampant. By 1984, as the death toll climbs, the top priority become preventing the spread of AIDS.

As the science progressed, activism intensified. AIDS patients and their loved ones began uniting all over the world to demand greater access to experimental drugs and plead their governments for more funding. In 1990, Congress passed the largest federally funded program in the US for people living with HIV/AIDS through the Ryan White CARE Act. In 1993, President Clinton set up the White House Office of National AIDS Policy and the National Institute of Health (NIH) expanded its AIDS research.

With great funding came great scientific breakthroughs for the treatment and prevention of HIV. FDA’s approval of Atripla in 2006 marked a watershed in HIV treatment. By combining three different antiviral medications- efavirenz, emtricitabine and tenofovir- into a single fixed-dose combination pill, HIV treatment became a once-daily single tablet regimen. Between 2005 and 2018, there was a 45% decline in AIDS related deaths worldwide.

Despite tremendous biomedical and scientific progress, there’s still no cure for AIDS. As people with HIV live longer, AIDS is a topic that has drifted from the headlines. When World AIDS Day was first established in 1988, the world looked very different to how it is today. As we celebrate the progress of the past four decades on this historic day, we mustn’t lose sight of the ultimate goal that lays ahead of us. CIRM has committed nearly $80 million to HIV/AIDS research including funding four separate clinical trials.