ABSTRACT
When the Special Programme on AIDS of the World Health Organization (WHO), later to become the Global Programme on AIDS (GPA), formally came into being in January 1987, three main areas of activity were proposed: the mobilization of interest and resources; the provision of collaborative support to national action; and the promotion of global research and interventions. They reflected what were seen as the main international needs at the time. Later, as the level of activity within these areas grew, the global research component was further broken down and units focusing on social and behavioural research, biomedical research, epidemiology and surveillance, and health promotion were set up. Until this point, much of the research that had been done on the subject of AIDS had been essentially in the biomedical domain. Most of it, moreover, continued to be undertaken in, or managed from, developed countries where resources were available and where the greatest interest in HIV and AIDS had emerged. The amount of social and behavioural research going on or planned still lagged well behind that in the biomedical sciences. Despite the fact that funds were available from many national sources, the subject of AIDS had not aroused the level of interest required for social and behavioural scientists to mount many major national, and certainly not international, initiatives.
