Hope is not lost!

It is very true that there is a lot of hopelessness that surrounds AIDS prevention in South Africa. The numbers are astounding, and at times it seems like it is an unconquerable task. If the only goal in all our efforts to beat this epidemic are in curing the country of HIV/AIDS then there really seems to be no hope. There is no way to rid this world of evils, people will always be sick, and for the forseeable future HIV will always exist in South Africa to some degree. But there is hope in what we can accomplish. The ARV drugs that have been provided through the ART program really do amazing things. There have been patients who have had to be carried into the clinic with such severe HIV that they are on the verge of death, and after a mere 5 days on ARVs they are walking around in decent health and able to live a pretty normal lifestyle. There is potential to really helpe a whole lot of people with these drugs and a potential to give very sick patients a normal life. Since the beginning of the ART program that started about 5 years ago huge numbers of patients have been treated. Right now almost a million people are on the ART program. A million people! Yes a lot of these patients do not adhere to their prescribed ARV regimen and don't see the desired results, but think of the number of lives that have been changed. It is true that many the public health workers have lost passion and hope in fighting HIV, but there are so many people excited about helping and people who are really passionate about their work fighting HIV. There will always be room for improvement and ways to improve the system, but the hope has to come from the perspective that so much has been accomplished. If you think of all that hasn't been accomplished or think about all the flaws in the system it's true that there really seems to be no hope. Hopefully support for this cause will continue because there really is potential to make huge strides against this epidemic that is tearing apart an entire country. People cannot and must not lose hope!