An AIDS Milestone, Two Years Late

Almost 3 million AIDS patients in developing nations are now receiving treatment from the life-extending antiviral drugs, according to a new report. It sounds like good news, until you realize that the World Health Organization (WHO) had hoped to reach that milestone in 2005. AIDS advocates say the international community was slow to commit to the monumental task of providing drugs to rural patients around the world, many of whom don't even know that they're infected. But in the past few years, boosted by the Bush administration's five-year, $15 billion AIDS program and an organized international effort, the project began to have effect. In late 2003, antiviral drugs were available to only 50,000 AIDS patients in Sub-Saharan Africa; today, 2.25 million people in that region have access to the medication they need. The new report, released yesterday by WHO and several other international organizations, trumpeted such pieces of good news, ...