New HIV/AIDS cases still high in US
Thirty years after doctors discovered it, people can live with the virus thanks to enormously expensive drugs.
Doctors first discovered what is now known as AIDS 30 years ago, and since then, the disease has killed almost 30 million people worldwide.
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Now, another 34 million people are living with HIV, the human immuno-deficiency virus that causes the illness.
In the US, people can live with the virus thanks to highly effective medications that have turned HIV/AIDS into a manageable chronic disease. However, those drugs are enormously expensive, which some Americans cannot afford without adequate insurance.
Free testing for HIV is widely available, but despite dramatic advances in testing and treatment, and decades-long education campaigns urging people to use condoms for sex and not share needles when taking drugs, the number of new cases of HIV/AIDS remains stubbornly high.
Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds reports from Los Angeles.