The recent earthquake in Haiti reminds us of the fragility of human life. In one instant, an entire city can be reduced to rubble, taking the lives of tens of thousands of people and devastating millions more. We can't stop natural disasters like earthquakes. But we can prevent another disaster - the HIV/AIDS pandemic - from causing undue suffering and tragic loss of life.

With the horror of the earthquake foremost in our minds as relief efforts continue, it's easy to forget Haiti's longtime struggle against HIV/AIDS. In the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic was expected to take the lives of more than one-third of the Haitian population. The stigma surrounding the disease was so severe that the US Centers for Disease Control had listed "Haitians" in addition to "homosexuals" and "heroin users" as leading risk factors in contracting HIV. As recently as 2001, 30,000 Haitians were dying of AIDS each year, leaving hundreds of thousands of children orphaned.

This grim picture changed in recent years, thanks to a coordinated international response. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Haiti has decreased dramatically, from a calamitous six percent of the population in 2001 to around two percent today. Before the earthquake, new infection rates were considered to be under control. And while 120,000 Haitians were estimated to be living with the disease before the earthquake, fatalities had begun to decrease dramatically. There were 7,500 deaths from AIDS in 2007, a four-fold reduction from 2001.

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