As we move into the second decade of the 21st century, HIV/AIDS continues to plague people of every nation, ethnicity, age, gender and orientation. With the numbers of people living with HIV hanging around the 33.4 million mark, there is something of a slowdown in new cases, but nothing that should allow HIV prevention efforts to abate.

As treatment of HIV/AIDS improves, healthcare workers and good personal care are able to increase the lifespan of carriers of HIV and AIDS patients. But new infections are continuing, perhaps at a slightly slower rate than a few years ago (the peak of the spread was in 1996), and there are still almost 3 million new infections each year. Three million lives. Three million new families thrown into a lifetime of worry, treatment, chronic serial illness and economic dire.

So the number of people living with HIV is growing and therefore increasing the potential exposure of healthy people. By now, 28 years after its first signs were noted, we as citizens of this global reality, should have learned to live alongside carriers and AIDS sufferers without ostracizing them and without continuing the chain of infection at such a massive rate. Our efforts are making an impact but we dare not rest yet. Campaigns about HIV prevention need to continue and they need to adjust themselves to the constantly changing face of HIV/AIDS.

New AIDS-related Issues:

2009 World AIDS Day Theme: Universal Access and Human Rights

The dream of universal access is still a way off, but following the growing success of South Africa and others, the situation is improving and the results are clear: people are surviving longer and with vastly improved quality of life.

By offering hope that HIV can be helped, not only for the rich but for every person, individuals are more likely to be tested for HIV and stigma is likely to begin breaking down as acceptance grows, reinforcing human rights that have been tarnished in places where HIV is seen as a person's trial and punishment, no matter what the circumstances.

The HIV Vaccine

AIDS researchers and doctors believe that an HIV vaccine is the next great step that will change the course of AIDS.

But developing an HIV vaccine has proven immensely difficult and expensive. Experimentation with thousands of potential prototypes has led to about 50 different trials being run across the globe since the first attempt in 1983. Nothing so far has shown enough effectiveness to justify development but there may be news in this arena.

In October 2009, positive results were announced for a vaccine being tested by the US military along with the Government of Thailand. The trial showed a 31% protective effect in a small controlled trial. This is far from the complete or almost complete protection we get from other common vaccines, but reducing infection by almost a third in risk groups is a real difference in human lives.

Even if the US and Thai governments decide to go ahead with this particular vaccine, it will take years before it can become a commercial product.