Counting on my clout and clique in a mid-sized pharmaceutical firm where I work, a colleague had approached me with a compatriot's prescription for free physician samples. After appraising the details of prescribed drugs – that are meant for an AIDS (acquired immuno deficiency syndrome) patient – it behooved me to delve further to find out how close the victim was and for how long was he infected.

I had shivers running up and down my spine as I heard he was in the end stages of AIDS, albeit the paper prescription is no source of contamination to me! I quickly managed to hide my feelings and rushed him out as if he was a carrier, promising to come back at best with a discount on the drugs, as I knew free samples of this kind are out of my turf.

Drugs of antiretroviral are sparse and no match with the availability of other common drugs, with hardly one multinational company producing them in the country I reside.

Inundated with hectic work schedules and myriad of other daily chores, I managed to get a discount of 30 per cent for my colleague on the drugs that I promised him four weeks ago, and left the information on his answering machine on one evening.

As my colleague arrived in my office the next day in response to my message, I noticed tears trickling down his cheeks. Breaking the silence, he revealed the death of his relative few days ago at a palliative care home.

Although it came as a shock, I quickly learned the statistics that there were 42 million living with (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) HIV/AIDS in 2002, and five million were infected in 2002 alone, according to a report from UNAIDS – Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Sadly, by the end of 2002, around 25 million people had lost their lives inasmuch as the beginning of the epidemic – including 4.3 million children under the age of 15 – resulting in 14 million orphans.

The future, particularly, is far more alarming as HIV/AIDS claimed a death toll of 3.1 million in 2002 alone, which is perching at a higher global total than in any year since the beginning of the epidemic.

Did the modern medicine fail to enshrine the society from such a grave epidemic? Is global community paying enough attention and allocating ample resources for this unprecedented humanitarian tragedy? Whose responsibility is it to curb the HIV surrounding the globe?

AIDS engendered a great deal of scientific research effort. Protease inhibitors, anti viral and a host of other cocktail therapies are some of the namely successes in AIDS therapy, which are hoorayed and hallowed in the pharmaceutical industry – yet there is still no vaccine.

However, once a sure path to the cemetery – with HIV infection – is today as manageable for some people as diabetes or hypertension. Yet the therapy has not been able to change most of the lives of the people living in sub Saharan Africa, where notably 70 per cent of all the global AIDS victims dwell.

High cost of drugs has always been a major hurdle in responding to the AIDS epidemic in the poor countries. Sure, the modern medicine got equipped with new weapons to combat the menace, so is the epidemic with new victims!

Resources are poring in too. The United Nations has been giving $ 10 billion a year to help fight AIDS, while the US is contributing to 5 per cent ($ 500 million) so far. Prior to the recent State of the Union address by President Bush, Microsoft's Bill Gates had been donating far more to AIDS endeavors, than had the US government.

Bush has pledged $ 15 billion over the next five years to fight AIDS, despite a looming war and budget crunch. But, it would be just sufficient to provide AIDS drugs to two million Africans and help prevent seven million new infections. Nevertheless, it was way above the $ 2.5 billion expected by the bipartisan health experts prior to the State of the Union address.

While question galore as to how the money will be used, who will receive it and how it will all be shared, agencies responsible for the fund will have to overcome bureaucracy and corruptions, which are known to have hampered the previous AIDS efforts.

Aside from the drugs and funds, AIDS pandemic is also multiplied by famine, poor education and poor infrastructure, a task well out of the UN budget for now. Trafficking of women and child prostitution are also being seen as a bludgeoning problem in developing countries that are smitten with the spread of venereal diseases and HIV/AIDS.

While few pharmaceutical companies are pledging to slash the cost of their AIDS treatment drugs and many states showering their share of funds, the real onus lies with the regional governments to educate and bring awareness.

Sauntering reforms and delayed actions may leave the world community facing an AIDS epidemic of catastrophic proportions. Nothing should overshadow the need for urgency, not even the space shuttle disaster.