Today is World AIDS Day, a day committed to increasing awareness and trying to combat a horrible, deadly disease.

And as I've said many times before, the continued emphasis on treatment over prevention is going to make things worse before it makes them better.

This, from the executive director of UNAids:

Peter Piot, executive director of UNAids, said ensuring people have access to drugs is the only way to fight the disease, which he called a "global emergency".

He said only 75,000 HIV-infected Africans were getting treatment - out of the four million who need it.

"That is really not acceptable and we have no chance of halting this epidemic if we're not going to make sure that everybody who needs it has access to treatment."

Excuse me? The only way to fight the disease is to treat those that have already contracted it? What kind of lunacy is this?

Treatment for the infected is a humane, important goal, but by far the emphasis should be placed on prevention, and that means education coupled with sensible ways to stop the spread of the disease, such as condoms.

Of course, most world leaders, and obviously the head of many world health organizations, are too worried about being sensitive to the religious predilictions and social prudishness of the countries most harshly affected and most at risk to speak out publicly for things that would help actually halt the disease. Treatment, folks, is not going to halt the disease.

Only prevention will do that, and AIDS is a wholly preventable disease.

Of course we expect this kind of shit from the Vatican:

The Vatican issues a five-page statement, defending its opposition to condoms and stressing the importance of "fidelity, chastity and abstinence".

But from world leaders, and from the head of UNAids? We should expect a lot more.