How the fight against AIDS might help the battle to end the Covid-19 pandemic

Last week’s World AIDS Day offered a timely reminder that the lessons learned during the long fight against HIV/AIDS may help the world battle to beat Covid-19.
Few know this better than Professor Linda-Gil Baker, the deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre in Cape Town, who points out that the challenges are similar.
The terrifying truth of course is that over the past 40 years nearly 33 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses and though there are treatments vaccine has proved elusive.
There were those who initially feared that the Covid-19 pandemic might take a similar course and be with us forever.
In fact useable and effective vaccines now seem to be with us and though it is still far from certain how the long-term effects of the coronavirus will play out there at least seems to be cause for at least some degree of optimism. We can but hope that the  huge efforts put into tackling both diseases teach and inform each other.