World AIDS day - Israel fights HIV

November 30, 2006 at 10:06 pm | In Lifestyle, Sciences |

Where to even start. The spread of HIV and AIDS raises so many issues and creates so many problems it’s hard to know where to even begin. What is one to do on World AIDS Day? What are you supposed to be thinking about? There are so many angles to be tackled in this problem.

There is the need for support for those infected and their families. The need to make medication readily available around the world. The need to fight against discrimination because of the virus. The need to educate against its being spread. The list goes on and on.

Around 40 million people have to deal with the reality of being infected on a day-to-day basis, every day. And that number continues to grow despite our efforts. So how can we not feel helpless?

The answer, fortunately, is very simple. There are some stellar examples around the globe of the tremendous breakthroughs being made in the field of HIV-AIDS. One of them is Dr. Tamar Jehuda-Cohen, a religious woman and mother of seven who, living in Israel, has developed a revolutionary tool for early detection of the HIV virus (as well as HCV, which causes chronic Hepatitis).

One of the major problems of HIV detection is that the primary method for detecting viruses – screening for antibodies in the blood – is stymied by HIV itself. Antibodies for HIV aren’t produced for weeks or months after infection, leading many people to get a clean bill of health when in fact they have become infected. It is estimated that on average up to 50 people a year are infected by individuals who have been tested for HIV during this window between their infection and the time the HIV virus becomes detectable.

Dr. Jehuda-Cohen’s breakthrough, now being developed by the Israeli company SMART Biotech, can take a drop of blood from a patient and accelerate rapidly the production of HIV antibodies, making detection of the virus possible faster than ever before. The key to prevention and education about HIV-AIDS, says Dr. Jehuda-Cohen, is early detection.

So tomorrow, I will be thinking about people like Dr. Jehuda-Cohen, who make it seem possible that World AIDS Day may someday become a relic of the past.

Read more about her breakthrough here