HIV and AIDS pandemic 'could be stopped in five to ten years'
22/02/2010
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was told that a huge anti-retroviral treatment (ART) programme could halt the HIV and AIDS pandemic in five to ten years at a meeting in San Diego on Sunday 21 February 2010.
Dr Brian Williams, of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis, said that the undertaking could prevent "one of the worst plagues in human history".
A small-scale trial of the strategy is to be organised in South Africa as well as in the US and Canada.
ART decreases the concentration of HIV in a person's body, making it less likely that the disease might then be contracted by somebody else.
To implement such a strategy, however, would possibly cost South Africa in excess of $3 billion (£1.9 billion) per year.
The AAAS was founded in 1848 and now serves 262 affiliated academies and societies and ten million individuals.
Written by Clare Devlin
