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From the EditorsGlobal Issues
Volume 6, Number 3
December 2001
On World AIDS Day, December 1, 2001, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS reported "AIDS has become the most devastating disease humankind has ever faced" with 40 million people now infected. As recognition of the magnitude of the problem has grown in recent years, consensus has emerged that building effective partnerships is absolutely fundamental if societies are to save lives and ease the suffering of persons with HIV/AIDS or other life-threatening maladies such as malaria and tuberculosis. Partnerships bring together civic, medical, and government resources to shape an overall response to disease, addressing prevention, treatment, and care.
The partnership process and the development of health care systems that grow from it result in priorities for the allocation and application of scarce health care resources. The specific structure that emerges will be different for each organization or country, reflecting the context in which it is developed. In this publication, we present initiatives and strategies that government officials, medical professionals, private citizens, and people of faith are devising to prevent disease and improve health care for today and the future.