It’s been 23 years since people appeared before doctors in New York and San Francisco,… It’s been 23 years since people appeared before doctors in New York and San Francisco, exhibiting mysterious symptoms not normally found in those with functioning immune systems. But in these years, the disease causing those symptoms — later identified as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus — has ballooned from a medical rarity to a pandemic.

World AIDS Day was yesterday, a day aimed at fundraising, promoting awareness, testing and educating people about HIV and AIDS. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 250,000 of the estimated 900,000 people in the United States who are HIV positive aren’t aware of their status.

Internationally, the problem is much worse. About 40 million people worldwide are HIV-positive; 95 percent of them live in developing countries. AIDS has killed 20 million people to date.

These are sobering statistics, almost indigestible because of their size. Because, in the United States, where HIV treatment is more available than in other countries, some have become complacent about the epidemic, thinking of HIV as a treatable disease.

Other places do not have the luxury of being complacent. Political debates over medicines, education and, of course, money, now infect what should be a global effort to find a cure or a vaccine, and, in the meantime, to make treatment available to all who need it.

Although progress is being made — Botswana, a sub-Saharan African country in which 37.4 percent of adult citizens are HIV positive, is now offering free antiviral treatments. This is only a small step in a much longer journey.

President George W. Bush signed the Global AIDS Act in May 2003, dedicating $15 billion to treatment, care and prevention. But the majority of the act’s educational funding goes toward abstinence-only education, an incredibly myopic move in light of how HIV is spreading and to whom.

Women are especially susceptible to getting HIV and comprise 57 percent of HIV-positive adults globally. Yet, in many countries and cultures, women cannot control whom they have sex with because there is a high incidence of rape and abuse, and they lack recourse for unfaithful partners and, in some places, basic human rights.

Hectoring these women about abstinence is no way to fight the spread of HIV. Denying them information about condoms and other safe-sex practices could be a death sentence for them.

Locally, we can do our best to educate and get tested. The Pitt community came together yesterday, with tabling, speakers and places to donate money. These are our small steps in the war on AIDS. It’s up to the Bush administration to make bigger ones.

The Pittsburgh AIDS Center for Treatment: HIV testing is located at 200 Lothrop St. Call for information at (412) 647-3112.