AIDS coverage in scientific journals

This week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine contains two articles on AIDS that are available free of charge.

The first article, Changing the Paradigm for HIV Testing -- The End of Exceptionalism, goes over content I blogged about here, discussing moving toward a more universal testing paradigm. The article focuses on issues specifically in the United States, but certainly many of the points have broad applicability.

The second article, AIDS in 2006 -- Moving toward One World, One Hope? is a broad overview of the lessons learned and problems still faced regarding HIV therapy, especially in the developing world. The authors are realistic and paint a stark picture, but remain hopefu.

The unglamorous and difficult process of increasing access to prevention and care needs to be our primary focus if we are to move toward the lofty goal of equitably distributed medical services in a world riven by inequality. Without such goals, the slogan "One World, One Hope" will remain nothing more than a dream.

Finally, though I'm specifically mentioning these new articles because they're freely available, I'll also note that the focus of the July 28th issue of Science was HIV/AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean. Though much time and attention is (rightly) paid to the AIDS epidemic in Africa, sessions at the conference and the Science issue remind us that the problem is much more widespread, with cases increasing not only in Latin America but also in Europe and Asia, especially China and countries of the former USSR. Prevention and treatment efforts need to be extended to these areas as well.

References

Bayer and Fairchild. 2006. Changing the Paradigm for HIV Testing -- The End of Exceptionalism. NEJM. 355:647-649.

Kim and Farmer. 2006. AIDS in 2006 -- Moving toward One World, One Hope? NEJM. 355:645-647.