Mildmay

We visited the world-renowned Mildmay clinic late last week and I haven't had a chance to mention it. It was very impressive. It's a Christian hospital and clinic specially designed to handle HIV-AIDS cases. It was opened back before 1900 by the Brits, but was closed in 1982 due to government cutbacks. It was reopened in 1985 after a campaign led by a Rotarian named Dr. Pinto. I've met his son Martin Pinto (also a medical doctor), but the late Dr. Pinto passed away two years ago in a horrific car accident.
The campus was beautiful and very impressive. They have some of the most advanced lab equipment I've seen in Africa, lots of space for adult patients and two or three separate buildings for the hundreds of pediatric patients they treat. There are also several lecture halls for discussions and classes about managing the condition and educating the friends, families and patients.
It's largely funded by the British Government and the CDC, but their funding is running out after 2012, so they are working on fundraising and building more sustainable clinics outside of the main campus.
One of the interesting things we learned was that the advancement of treatment options for HIV/AIDS has made the disease manageable. People can live relatively normal lives as long as they adhere to the treatment protocol. While this is no doubt a fantastic achievement in medicine and has improved or saved the lives of millions of people, it has also allowed them to fall back into old habits.
Prior to the introduction of ARVs, Africans were terrified of HIV, as they should've been. We were told that people were more faithful to their significant others, used protection and were much more conscious of their actions. Now that we have treatment options, medical professionals are seeing a sustained number of cases (instead of a drop off). They believe that people are going back to their old habits of sexual promiscuity and unprotected sex. If true, it's troubling and extremely unfortunate. I have no data to back any of this up, but we sat down with multiple representatives from Mildmay and that seemed to be the consensus.
Steve made an interesting parallel with the gas "crisis" that takes place every summer in the US. Each summer (or so it seems), gas prices jump up significantly higher than other times of the year. As a result, Americans drive less or are less likely to purchase large SUVs. When prices drop back down in the fall, everyone goes right back to their old ways.
Obviously habits regarding fuel usage and protection against a potentially lethal sexually transmitted infection are on different parts of the spectrum, but I think it sheds a little light on human nature and inertia.