ABSTRACT
Ilavenil Ramiah Introduction At the brink of the third decade of the AIDS epidemic, the disease has claimed more lives than any armed conflict in recent history.2 As shown in Table 7.1 below, in 2003, three million people died from AIDS and five million people were newly infected by the HIV virus.3 The total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world in 2003 was approximately 40 million.4
