Then I open up and see the person falling here is.

• Author: Weil, Benjamin
• Position: Spread of AIDS

Given all that we now know about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), it is sometimes surprising, even shocking, to note how little seems to have changed. Every year, we learn about a new population affected by the epidemic or a country in which HIV prevalence has double within five years, quadrupled within two years, or accelerated with even greater speed. And yet a great deal of clear, well-researched information is available to national governments and policy makers from such sources as the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the world Health Organization (WHO), which recently published the latest AIDS Epidemic Update, detailing the status and trends of the global epidemic through the end of 1998. At the same time, in many countries - though by no means all - a combination of governmental and non-governmental efforts has yielded extensive public information, education and communication (IEC) programmes on HIV and AIDS. As a result, the vast majority of some national populations is at least aware of how to avoid becoming infected with the virus.

Despite the availability of increasingly accurate information on the HIV epidemic and widespread IEC programmes to help educate people on how to remain uninfected it may appear that many Governments have still done little to respond in a substantial manner, and even the best-informed individuals continue to contract HIV. Are we still in denial about HIV and AIDS? How can we know so much and do so little to stop the spread of the virus? People who have lived and worked within the epidemic, in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean and North America, join me in trying to shed some light on these questions. UNAIDS also offers its view. On the subject of government action, all correspondents had at least one point in common. Governments, particularly in developing countries, have so many urgent problems to deal with that they are often hard-pressed to confront the HIV epidemic, especially if its effects are still minimal or invisible. "The Nepalese Government knows that we are at risk", writes Sujata Rana of Nepal. "But even the gravity of HIV and AIDS in neighbouring countries such as India, including the economic threat, doesn't necessarily prompt officials to respond. Nepal doesn't really have an 'economy' in the classical sense: most people are subsistence farmers. Given the overwhelming levels of unemployment and...