Clues to a possible cure for AIDS

This snapshot of the epidemic is the background against which the 25th International AIDS Conference opens in Munich. Though these gatherings are no longer the councils of war about how best to proceed that they were in the epidemic’s early days—for matters of grand strategy in the fight against HIV are now pretty-much settled—they are still an important forum for researchers, medics and activists from around the world to meet with each other and with the bigwigs. They are also an opportunity to remind politicians and voters in wealthy countries, where AIDS has pretty much dropped off the radar screen, that the fight continues in many of the world’s poorer parts, and that money is the sinews of wars against viral enemies, as much as human ones.