World Aids Day 2017: Treatment improves, more outreach needed | Kaitlin Schroeder - Staff Writer

Note: As this article points out, treatment of HIV has improved dramatically, but much more needs to be done to increase awareness, reduce stigma, and to test and treat HIV worldwide. Recently, the early development of a vaccine showed promise. There is also a hope that an eventual cure of HIV will be developed – Alan

A diagnosis of HIV or AIDS is not what it was 25 years ago.

Bill Hardy, president and CEO of Equitas Health, said when he first started work in the early 1990s for the organization — formerly the AIDS Resource Center — if you learned you had AIDS, you were getting a death sentence.

“Half of all people who were diagnosed with AIDS up until 1996 died within 18 months of diagnosis,” said Hardy, speaking from Equitas’ Dayton office.