Professor Gallo,
You are one of the world's most renowned virologists and molecular biologists responsible for several breakthroughs in medical biochemistry. In addition to isolating and reproducing the HI virus, you were successful in developing a blood test for detecting HIV antibodies, which has since become known as the HIV test. The development of this first and new diagnostic tool marked a major step forward in the battle to overcome this new disease.

For twenty years now, your name has been inseparably linked with HIV/AIDS, a disease, which, when it initially arose, aroused fear and concern, not to mention panic, across the world. When the HIV/AIDS crisis first emerged, the medical system was largely unprepared as work on the epidemiology of infectious diseases had been neglected. As a result, it was necessary to first implement effective systems for recording epidemiological data, to develop preventive intervention methods and to learn infectiological skills.

At the same time, HIV and AIDS were never viewed merely as being medical or administrative problems for which a cure was required. Instead, they were accompanied by frequently heated debate in our society at large, a situation which has not changed to this day. To quote one example from Hamburg: When the "Struensee CenteC was established in Hamburg by the German AIDS Prevention Association in 1986, it was not possible to affix a sign bearing the word "AIDW to the building entry ? too great were the doubts and fears that this might disturb or upset the other occupants of the building. In the early days in particular we witnessed what in some cases were hysteric reactions.

The possibility of detecting HIV in the form of a test developed by Robert Gallo eased the situation to some extent as it was now possible to identify infections.

This was an important breakthrough given the worrying dimensions which this new health problem AIDS was assuming. It quickly became evident, however, that the number of infections in the industrial nations had failed to reach the magnitude which some epidemiologists had projected in doomsday scenarios. At the same time, solidarity with people suffering from HIV/AIDS became the order of the day especially as it was now known that the disease could not be spread in normal social interaction.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Today, what worries us more is the fact that awareness of the risks posed by HIV and AIDS is receding and that the necessary caution is being neglected. Just as excessive hysteria was mistaken twenty years ago, so also would it be wrong to neglect this subject today ?either in ? Germany or anywhere else in the world.

The dimension of the AIDS problem in Africa in particular is more than we can possibly imagine, while the disease is spreading at alarming rates in Eastern Europe. According to UNICEF, AIDS is now the greatest health risk facing young people in Eastern Europe. All this goes to show that both research and broadbased preventive activities aimed at the target groups of relevance today remain necessary and, indeed, indispensable.


Senator Jörg Dräger, Ph.D.