“If ever there was a demonstration of the power of science, it is the course of the fight billed ‘Mankind v AIDS’. Until 1981 the disease (though already established in parts of Africa) was unknown to science. Within a decade it passed from being seen as primarily a threat to gay men, and then to promiscuous heterosexuals, to being a plague that might do to some parts of Africa what the Black Death did to medieval Europe. But now, though 1.6m people a year still die of it, that number is on a downward trajectory­, and AIDS rarely makes the headlines any more. How was this achieved?  The answer has two parts: sound science and international co-operation.”

Source: www.economist.com

The Ebola epidemic has dominated headlines recently.  In their haste, it has been lost on that media the scary medical story of the 20th century (AIDS) that was going to doom Africa is now a success story.  Some of the stories about Ebola have treated Africa as one monolithic place–Africa is not a single story.  

Tags:  medical, diffusion, Africa, regions, perspective.