As it stands over 22 million people have already died from AIDS and the numbers are only growing. Right now there are 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS and 74% of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. By the year 2010 five countries (Ethiopia, Nigeria, China, India, and Russia which make up 40% of the world’s population) will add 50 to 70 million people to the numbers of those already severely infected. And if that were not enough, 14,000 people are infected every day. That’s 14,000 new cases of infection happening every single day in both the industrial and developing world.

Anyone could understand how the recent failure of health officials to develop a vaccine is a disconcerting reality to say the least, but this is not a time for us to lose perspective. In spite of how we feel about the lack of significant progress in this regard, we must resist the temptation to take the situation out of context; because while it is true that AIDS is a rather new phenomenon, the fight against infectious diseases, however, is not.

Take for instance the battle against Polio. We now know that Polio was first detected in the United States in 1921 but a vaccine to cure the dreaded disease was not developed until 1955. It took 34 years for researchers to develop a successful treatment and at no point in the journey was the process easy or immediately successful. And while it is true that AIDS is more of a pandemic than Polio seems to have been, it is no less the case that the fight against Polio exacted the same amount of courage and commitment that the battle against AIDS seems to be demanding from researchers today.

What about the Bubonic Plague? Here is a disease that began in the 14 century but a vaccine wasn’t developed until the middle of the 20^th century. For nearly six hundred years courageous men and women dedicated their lives to the singular vision of eradicating “the black death” from the face of the earth. And were it not for their generational commitment to the possibility of human flourishing, millions of people might still be needlessly suffering.

Just like AIDS there are ways to prevent the Bubonic Plague, but the ability to prevent something should never be substituted for the capacity to cure it altogether. Each comes with its own reward, but having one without the other has not (at least not in the case of AIDS) prevented the death of millions of people around the world.

Yes we can prevent AIDS, but the development of a vaccine will not only protect us from the virus, it will, in a manner of speaking, protect us from ourselves. AIDS is a uniquely human reality because the virus is linked to some of the central elements of our humanity, namely, sexuality, addiction, lust, and perhaps most of all indiscretion. And it is in this sense that AIDS is a true pandemic (from the Greek, Pan meaning: all and Demos meaning: people) because every human being has within them the capacity for infection regardless of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. We are all so tragically human and the possibility of making a mistake is ever before us. It is in many respects an inescapable reality and trying to use prevention as the only way to fight against AIDS is like trying to stop people from arguing by preventing them to talk. It might work but it just isn’t likely.

This is what makes the conundrum of AIDS such as complex situation. We aren’t just fighting against the mutating configurations of the virus itself, we are also battling human nature, human fallibility, the seductive influence of addiction and desire. And while it is true that everybody makes a mistake, it is no less the case that nobody should have to die for it.

Maybe health officials and researchers should begin to see their work as less a matter a science and more a matter of faith. Not faith in a God or some other transcendent reality, but faith in the possibilities of persistence. And maybe with a little faith in spite of the facts some unknown scientist in some distant part of the world might be inspired to advance the cause for a cure and bring hope to millions of people across the globe.

Perhaps members of the scientific community could learn a little something from those of us who believe in something other science; because it is becoming increasingly clear that the race to find a cure will depend on another distinctly human capacity, namely, the capacity to hope. The situation is so dyer that we must leverage all of our ingenuity and genius in the effort to find a cure. And while it is true that we are indeed fallible creatures full indiscretions and vices, it is no less the case that the great gift of our humanity is the capacity to be greater than the sum of our parts.

This is not a call to religion because hope has no particular religious affiliation. And besides, at this point in the struggle we don’t need any more ideologies getting in the way. What we need now are inspired people who (either in service to their religion or by way of some other motivating factor) believe that healing is possible, that you never know what tomorrow will bring, and that our best days are still ahead of us.

To all the researchers currently working to find a cure for AIDS we simply say, “just when the caterpillar thought it was over--she became a butterfly.” Never give up!