When you hear any announcement regarding the success of a potential HIV vaccine, you can't help but feel some form of hope and joy.
We all know what horrible problems HIV and AIDS cause in this world, and we all long to hear of a day when we don't have to worry about those dark spectres any more.
We hope, we rejoice, but we analyze what we hear.
It's the most effective vaccine to date, but it's only 30 percent effective. As some would say, that means it's 70 percent ineffective.
Also, if it's 70 percent ineffective, that means there were certain people in the test study that could have been and probably were infected with HIV.
We hope the subjects knew the risks involved, as we hate to think such a celebrated medical breakthrough came with the added price tag of infecting more people with the disease we are attempting to cure.
At this point, it's not certain if the vaccine is only effective against a particular strain of HIV or if it has applications for the eradication against any other strains.
There are many details still to be worked out and discussed, but we are still impressed by the numbers.
Three out of 10 were successfully vaccinated.
We can develop a vaccine.
This is a disease that killed an estimated 14, 561 Americans in 2007, increasing the total number of American deaths attributed to HIV and AIDS at 583, 298.
These numbers pale in comparison with the global numbers, especially the epidemic in Africa. At the end of 2007, the African continent reported an estimated 1.5 million deaths due to HIV and AIDS.
If some human force were killing this many people, there would be immediate action taken against them.
This viral enemy is far more difficult to fight, as ignorance and lack of resources help to continue its spread.
Even a semi-working vaccine shows us that we can start to win this fight.
We have to keep pushing for further developments, and keep funding the crucial research and experimentation that leads to these magnificent breakthroughs.
This development may not be the dawn of a new day, but the dawn draws nearer.
There's joy in that.
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