Thabo Mbeki Quotes

I started to write about science and medicine at the 'Washington Post,' in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

It's pretty impossible to be a South African and not have been personally affected by HIV or AIDS.

To me, AIDS is an international epidemic and every country can be affected by it. Therefore, it can be discussed on an international level. Unfortunately, AIDS doesn't require a visa.

Part of my job at 'The Economist' was writing about HIV, and that included the grim task of reporting on the state of the global epidemic.

AIDS is a plague - numerically, statistically and by any definition known to modern public health - though no one in authority has the guts to call it one.

In today's world, new infections and diseases can spread across the country and even across the world in a matter of days, or even hours, making early detection critical.

AIDS was allowed to happen. It is a plague that need not have happened. It is a plague that could have been contained from the very beginning.

I'm over there filming in South Africa now, and two in five are HIV-positive now. Not many people know that.

There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.

China is certainly an important player in the global economy, and a widespread AIDS epidemic would threaten that growth.

Too many people have already lost their lives to HIV and AIDS, and the more celebrities who can bring attention to the issue, the better.

I want to be incredibly clear: The United States stands for a public health approach to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

There is no firm dividing line between what is an epidemic and what is not an epidemic, but I think, when you look at a map that shows widespread influenza activity in 36 states, that we regard it -- from a common-sense perspective -- as an epidemic.

HIV/AIDS has been a big epidemic for my generation, it's been around for as long as I've been alive.

The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed. Poverty is the reason HIV/AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums. Poverty is the real killer.

The FDA first began prohibiting gay and bisexual men from donating blood in the early 1980s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, when the risk from blood transfusion was just beginning to be understood. In the decades to follow, the 'lifetime ban' was left largely unchanged.

I believe UNAIDS' provocative leadership has been critical in addressing the AIDS epidemic and converting it from a death sentence to a chronic health condition.

AIDS is a very, very, very vicious disease, particularly in the black community.

Humankind is no stranger to calamitous outbreaks of diseases.

My professional background has prepared me for a moment like this - to confront and defeat a deadly virus that threatens Americans and people around the globe.

World Aids Day is both a day of remembrance and a day of hope.

I walk out of my apartment, and St. Vincent's is standing there like a ghost ship. That was the ground zero of AIDS in New York: a conservative institution that quickly adapted to its unconventional patients and made heroic efforts to try and save them.

We grew up in an era where there was a lot of fear of HIV. Everybody worried about it and everybody took precautions, and everybody knew that it was a thing that was out there. As it slowed down, it left the spotlight, people forgot.

HIV/AIDS is a very big problem in my country South Africa, so I hope to stand as an advocate for that.

AIDS is a shared truth - it's not selective in its wrath.