According to reports, participants of the workshop at Detroit's Northwest Activities Center will get free and confidential HIV testing and various health screenings.

Such moves are just a few examples of some of the things being implemented today to raise awareness about AIDS and HIV on an international scale.

Progress

For all the campaigning underway, there is some good news. According to the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) 2008 report on the global AIDS epidemic, the world is, at last, making some real progress in its response to the disease.

The report explains how governments across the globe are now acting on promises made at the 2006 United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, to ramp up universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support by 2010. According to the report, as of 2008, a small number of countries are already providing universal access to anti-retroviral treatment and to services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

However, almost 30 years into the epidemic, the report also stresses how AIDS continues to challenge all of our efforts. For every two people who start taking anti-retroviral drugs, another five become newly infected. According to the UNAIDS report, unless we take urgent steps to intensify HIV prevention, we will fail to sustain the gains of the past few years, and universal access will simply be a noble aspiration.

Out of reach

Twelve years ago, along with other researchers, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, concluded that AIDS could be destroyed in all but a few pockets in the body. According to the researchers, if the virus could be killed or neutralised in these pockets, known as "viral reservoirs", AIDS would be cured.

Now, in private conversations, small meetings, and medical journals, leading researchers are calling for a renewed focus on eradicating the AIDS virus. But, for the pharmaceutical industry to really cure AIDS, funding must be available for promising research projects on a continuing basis.

And today, on World AIDS Day 2009, we find ourselves getting closer and closer to a cure. The stakes are extremely high. In the interim, however, with a cure still just out of reach, informed decisions can help keep infections at bay.

Take a look at the accompanying slideshow, which explores the history of the AIDs epidemic in more detail.

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