HIV/AIDS

What is HIV/AIDS?

HIV/AIDS hits hardest among the young and able-bodied. It shatters families, impoverishes communities and hamstrings the economic and social development of entire nations. More than 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, including more than 12 million in Africa alone. In sub-Saharan Africa, per capita economic growth falls by 1 percent each year because of HIV/AIDS.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that infects the body’s immune system. As the infection progresses, the immune system becomes weaker, and the person becomes more susceptible to other infections. The most advanced stage of HIV infection is acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It can take as long as 10-15 years for an HIV-infected person to develop AIDS. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) can slow down the process even further.

HIV/AIDS is transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse (anal or vaginal), transfusion of contaminated blood, sharing of contaminated needles and between a mother and her infant during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. Young women are especially vulnerable to infection because they often have less access to available medical treatments and adequate information. In many countries, women’s subordination to men prevents women and girls from negotiating safe sex practices.

History of a disease

Since 1981, roughly 65 million people have contracted HIV/AIDS, killing at least 30 million. An estimated 35-40 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS, 95 percent of them in developing countries and nearly two-thirds in sub-Saharan Africa.

In 1987, the first effective HIV/AIDS antiretroviral treatment was approved. Limited availability and astronomical costs made it difficult to treat people in resource-poor countries like Haiti, Rwanda and Lesotho. As more drugs were developed, HIV/AIDS became a manageable chronic disease.

For tens of millions of people living in developing countries the disease remains a death sentence – often because global health experts still believe treatment is too expensive and complicated to deliver to the poor.

PIH and other groups have proved that treatment can save lives while strengthening both HIV/AIDS prevention and primary care. Pressured by Clinton Foundation and HIV/AIDS activists, generic drug manufacturers decreased the price of ARTs from several thousand dollars a year to less than $150.

The HIV Equity Initiative

In 2000, PIH launched its HIV Equity Initiative in rural Haiti. It was one of the first programs in the world to provide free, comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment. The program's incredible success changed how the world approaches and funds diseases of the poor.

PIH adheres to four foundamental pillars when addressing HIV/AIDS in poor settings: providing treatment in the context of primary care, screening for and treating tuberculosis and STIs, and emphasizing women's health.

PIH fights HIV/AIDS

Around the world, PIH cares for people living with HIV in 12 countries. In 2011, PIH provided ARTs to roughly 6,300 people in Haiti. In Rwanda, PIH tested nearly 108,000 people for HIV, treating thousands of people who tested positive for the disease. In Lesotho we tested 15,000 patients for HIV, treating the roughly 8.6 percent who tested positive for the disease. 

This is just a small snapshot of a larger effort.

PIH provides housing, water, food and psychosocial support to thousands of people living with the HIV. Providing medicine alone is equivalent to asking someone to dry their hands in the dirt after washing them, to paraphrase a Haitian proverb.