Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1986. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - November 23, 1986
Lara Mansnerus and Katherine Roberts
Last week, he said that he had made a "gross underestimate" and announced the beginning of a global effort to combat the disease, calling AIDS "a health disaster of pandemic proportions."
Dr. Mahler said the health organization, a United Nations agency, needed $200 million a year to launch its campaign, which is to include educational programs, research and efforts to develop an inexpensive blood screening test for use in the third world. By the 1990's, he said, the agency hopes to be raising $1.5 billion a year.
He was critical of some countries that he said still lacked the "political guts" to face acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
According to the agency's admittedly conservative estimates, about 100,000 people have AIDS. But, it says, as many as 10 million are infected with the virus. In five years, Dr. Mahler said, as many as 100 million people could be infected with the AIDS virus. And, he warned, the estimates could rise if AIDS spread through Asia, where it was "knocking unpleasantly on the doors."
In the United States, the Public Health Service predicts that by the end of 1991 more than 250,000 people will have the disease and 179,000 will have died from it.
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