The theoretical model showed that if you test people for HIV, on average once per year, and start them on antiretroviral (ARV) therapy immediately, the result will be a staggering 95% reduction in new HIV cases over 10 years.

This meant that a 15 000 to 20 000 per million incidence is reduced to 1 000 per million. And the HIV prevalence goes down to about 1% by 2050.

The data used in the model was from sub-Saharan Africa and was specifically designed to look at the heterosexual epidemic.

It did, for the first time, represent a change in the way the world thought about ARV therapy and raised some thoughts that the drugs are good, not only for treatment, but also for preventing HIV transmission.

Two years later science is saying it is feasible ‘€“ that early treatment of people with HIV massively reduces their infectiousness.

The results showed that sex with an HIV positive person on ARV treatment with an undetectable viral load is as safe as using condoms.

These findings have revolutionized HIV policy-making as, for the first time, ARVs are being counted as a weapon to prevent the spread of HIV as well as to treat the virus ‘€“ what is now called treatment-as-prevention.

South African HIV Clinician Dr Francois Venter has proclaimed: ‘€œI would say that people who are on successful ARV treatment are 100 percent safe and will not transmit the virus.’€

And the national health department’€™s head of HIV/AIDS Dr Thobile Mbengashe described it as a ‘€œgame-changer’€.

He warns that South Africa could carry on doing things as usual ‘€“ or could hit the epidemic hard with treatment-as-prevention and actually have a chance to halt the spread of HIV.

With the business-as-usual approach the country will double the expenditure from R16 million to R32 billion by 2030. There will be an increase in infections, death and costs and this is not sustainable.

Of course the cornerstone of this intervention is for people to actually get tested and know their HIV status. Unless this critical step happens it will indeed be business as usual and millions of Rands will be wasted with HIV incidence continuing to climb.

But all of this costs money. Lots of it. Yes, we will save money in the long-run, but for now millions needs to be invested in improving access to quality treatment. This is already a challenge in a country where one in five people is living with HIV and the economy is under immense pressure with many demands.

The devastating news that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the ‘€œfinancial armada’€ against the three diseases, would not be able to grant funding in its next round.

Stephen Lewis, former AIDS Envoy to the past United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, described it as a most serious, catastrophic setback.

Not one to mince his words Lewis said it was terribly important to recognise the moral implications: ‘€œIt’€™s not just the fact that people will die; it’€™s the fact that those who have made the decisions know that people will die. How does that get rationalised? How does that get dealt with in the inner sanctums of development ministries and cabinet discussions? What in God’€™s name do they say to each other?’€

He goes on to ask what possesses these donor countries to intensify the ‘€œemotional and physical havoc’€ in Africa which will bear the brunt of this decision.

Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, also a Special Advisor to the current UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, finds it ironic that at a time when scientific knowledge is so powerful that we can save millions of children, mothers and fathers from killer diseases at little cost, the world won’€™t make the investment.

He accuses his country of being unwilling to reorientate less than one  day’€™s military budget to save millions of lives.

It is time for all governments to realise that the world will find no real security until it addresses the problems of disease, poverty and hunger.

Let World AIDS Day 2011 be a turning point away from a senseless war to a compassionate war against a disease that we can now for the first time dream of overcoming. A war in which we actually end up saving lives. Now wouldn’€™t that be something.