World AIDS Day spreads message of treatment and prevention

As treatment improves, HIV has become more like a manageable chronic disease, and fewer people are dying from it, an Iowa City researcher says.

But more people are living with HIV than ever before - more than 1.1 million Americans in 2006 - and new cases are diagnosed every day, said Dr. Jack Stapleton, director of an HIV/AIDS treatment clinic at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

Today's observation of World AIDS Day is a chance to spread the message of treatment and prevention for a disease that seems to have fallen out of the public consciousness as medical progress is made, HIV activists and doctors say.

“A number of things happened over the past decade that have improved the quality of life for patients and paradoxically decreased the epidemic's prominence in people in the U.S.'s psyche,” Stapleton said. “But worldwide it continues to grow.

AIDS is the leading cause of death from epidemic disease in the world, he said, and by 2025 will be the largest epidemic in history.

Medical progress is extending lives, but focus must continue to be put on prevention and testing, said Kurt Pierick, program coordinator with ICARE - the Iowa Center for AIDS Resources and Education - in Iowa City.

“People die every day and people are diagnosed every day,” he said. “It's about making people aware and responsible.”

An experimental vaccine that showed promise recently in blocking some infections gives hope for future research but was not as big of a breakthrough as it was made out to be, Stapleton said. The benefits of the vaccine were modest.

“The news of the vaccine was good in that it gives us some hope that we may be able to identify why a small percentage of people could be protected,” Stapleton said. “Everybody is anxious to see anything positive, and from a global perspective, a vaccine is still the best hope to have a major decrease in infection.”

World AIDS Day was started in 1988 by the World Health Organization. Johnson County Public Health and ICARE will provide free HIV testing from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. today in meeting rooms A, B and C at the Iowa City Public Library, 123 South Linn St. The service tested 20 people on World AIDS Day last year and expanded the hours this year to accommodate demand.

The groups also will sponsor a free panel discussion about living with HIV at 7 p.m. tonight at hotelVetro, second floor of the Plaza Towers, 201 South Linn St.