Let's have a change of strategy on AIDS

Richard Holbrooke, the head on the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, is right on the money in this Washington Post column to mark World AIDS day on the 1st December.  He argues that the current strategy is failing to reverse the spread of the disease:

We are not winning the war on AIDS, and our current strategies are not working. Every year since the first World AIDS Day, the number of people affected has increased. The very best that can be said is that we are losing at a slightly slower rate.

Holbrooke argues that the current strategy - which puts its greatest emphasis on treatment - is  a recipe for long-term, expensive failure, because the numbers of sufferers will continue to rise. And once someone starts ARV treatment, they have to remain on it for the rest of their lives.

Holbrooke is quite right to say that the only way to defeat AIDS is to place more emphasis on prevention. And to do that properly, the world health community needs to give more attention to testing and detection. 

It's good to see that even insiders at the highest levels of the health community are beginning to demand a change of course from the UN on AIDS policy.

Let's see if those in command will begin to take their cue from sensible, evidenced-based suggestions like this, or if they will continue to have their agendas dictated by the activists.