The New York Times - June 16, 2005

To the Editor:

David Brooks's column from Namibia ("In Africa, Life After AIDS," June 9) underscores a vital point about the war on AIDS: unless people are tested, there is no way to stop the spread of the disease.

The people whose progress he celebrates are alive because they got tested. Yet according to Unaids, more than 90 percent of the H.I.V.-positive people in the world do not know their status. They are thus unintentionally, but inevitably, spreading the disease for the seven to eight years in which it lives undetected in their bodies.

This is the weak link in the war on AIDS. It remains a serious failure of the international effort that testing doesn't receive more attention. It must be done in a way that protects confidentiality and does not stigmatize those who test positive - but it is essential if we are to stop the spread of the world's most dangerous disease.

Richard Holbrooke

New York, June 14, 2005

The writer, former United States ambassador to the United Nations, is the president and chief executive of the Global Business Coalition on H.I.V./AIDS.

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