For World AIDS Day, Hillary Clinton envisions an AIDS-free generation

Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day. On this date each year, organizations and individuals from around the world work together to call attention to the global AIDS crisis.

This year's World AIDS Day theme is "Getting to Zero", marking a campaign that runs until 2015 with the goal of getting to zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths.

In observance of Worlds AIDS Day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a "blueprint for an AIDS-free generation".

Some excerpts from her speech:

Now, make no mistake about it: HIV may well be with us into the future. But the disease that it causes need not be. We can reach a point where virtually no children are born with the virus, and as these children become teenagers and adults, they are at a far lower risk of becoming infected than they are today. And if they do acquire HIV, they have access to treatment that helps prevent them not only from developing AIDS, but from passing the virus on to others.

[...]

First, let’s remember why, after so many years of discouraging news, this goal is now possible. By applying evidence-based strategies in the most effective combinations, we have cut the number of new infections dramatically. Just last week, UNAIDS announced that, over the past decade, the rate of new HIV infections has dropped by more than half in 25 low-and-middle-income countries, most of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. Just listen to these numbers: In Zimbabwe, a 50 percent reduction; in Namibia, a 68 percent reduction; and in Malawi, a 73 percent reduction in the rate of new infections.

So as we continue to drive down the number of new infections and drive up the number of people on treatment, eventually we will be able to treat more people than become infected every year. That will be the tipping point. We will then get ahead of the pandemic, and an AIDS-free generation will be in our sight. Now, we don’t know how long it will take to do this everywhere, but we know that we can do it.

I hope she is correct.

>> Read Secretary Clinton's full statement here.