This research paper discusses the international and human rights aspects of infections caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and its medical symptomology Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). HIV/AIDS is the greatest threat posed by disease to the human race since the time of the Black Plague. Difficult to prevent and resistant to treatment, HIV/AIDS is a pandemic, which manifests itself throughout the world. It can only be brought under control through the global cooperation of international and national governmental and non-governmental organizations. The human rights movement, which has been spearheaded by agencies of the United Nations, has helped protect victims of HIV/AIDS from discrimination, stigmatization and other affronts to human dignity, resisted irrational reactions by nations produced by panic, fear and ignorance and has spread knowledge concerning the realities of HIV/AIDS throughout the world.
The international human rights movement and the activities of the UN and other health agencies has helped alleviate suffering and prevent death among AIDS sufferers. However, they face insuperable obstacles in controlling the disease in the Third or less developed world, especially in the absence of further medical breakthroughs in the area of anti-HIV vaccines. Funding levels for anti-HIV/AIDS international programs have risen; however, calls for a substantial reallocation of international resources from the developed to the less developed world are likely to fall on deaf ears, especially since so few less developed nations have made effective use of resources.
Mann, Dan & Kay call the first phase running from the mid-1970 through 1981 as "the silent pandemic." Physicians in the United States and other developed world countries noted an increasing number of cases in which patients were suffering and dying from certain types of pneumonia (Pneumocystis carinii), Karpinski's sarcoma and other diseases nor...