AIDS: 25 YEARS LATER, IT'S A LEGACY OF MISERY

At least 6,032 Mississippians have contracted AIDS since 1981 and
3,033 have died from it.

Mississippi's death rate from AIDS is 7 per 100,000 residents, while
the national AIDS death rate is 4.7.

Three of four Mississippians who have contracted AIDS are male, but
the fastest-growing AIDS diagnosis category is females.

Some 55 percent of Mississippians with AIDS got it from male-to-male
sex or injection drug use, but one in five contracted it from
heterosexual contact.

It's been 25 years since doctors in California first began to
identify the disease that would come to be called Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS in a group of young, sexually active
homosexual men.

The disease produced an appalling set of symptoms - physical wasting,
lesions, cancers, pneumonia and other maladies - but regardless the
vast differences in those symptoms from patient to patient, the
result in most cases was death.

The legacy of AIDS after 25 years is one of startling statistics.
Worldwide, AIDS has claimed the lives of 25 million people and almost
70 million are believed to be infected.

Despite billions of dollars spent in worldwide research by some of
the world's brightest scientists, no vaccine for the Human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS is on the horizon and
HIV/AIDS has now reached pandemic levels worldwide.

The worst news is that just as researchers have established that HIV
has mutated or changed over the last 25 years, researchers believe it
will continue to mutate as the virus sweeps densely populated
potential hotspots like China and India.

The better news is that treatment options are improving and that many
HIV/AIDS patients are living longer, richer lives because of medical advances.

But there remains no cure.

Mississippi needs a more aggressive approach to combatting AIDS
through public education, public health services and better public
hospice opportunities. Young people need frank, honest information
about HIV/AIDS.

AIDS is a worldwide public health threat that has not spared and will
not spare Mississippians.