FM December 2020 digital P

special report
A WORLD WITHOUT AIDS:
STILL A
DISTANT DREAM
Nearly four decades later, HIV continues to elude a cure and
defies all efforts to wipe it out
N S ARUNKUMAR
of blue, reminds
me of you, ribbons of red,
“Ribbons
are the way that my heart
bled..”, when Boney-M first sang these
lines in 1979, there was no special
meaning attached to them, other
than the obvious references to true
love, friendship and solidarity. It was
later that red ribbons gained a special
meaning as the symbol of solidarity
with people living with AIDS. The need
for such a solidarity movement was felt
as HIV carriers were often treated as
outcasts by the society.
Only our collective responsibility
to each other can help the world
end the AIDS epidemic, said UNAIDS
Executive Director Winnie Byanyima,
elucidating the theme for the World
AIDS Day, 2020: ‘Global Solidarity and
Shared Responsibility’. “More than 12
million people are still waiting to get on
HIV treatment and 1.7 million people
became infected with HIV in 2019
because they could not access essential
services,” she said.
The Patient in Ward 86
It was at San Francisco General
Hospital that the world’s first dedicated
56 / FUTURE MEDICINE / December 2020