ABSTRACT
In 2006, 25 years after scientists reported the first clinical evidence of what would later become known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, the disease is still deadly. AIDS killed 2.8 million people in 2005, mainly adults in the prime of life (UNAIDS, 2006a). Currently available anti-retroviral therapies can only slow down the mechanism by which the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) multiplies itself and thereby delay the outbreak of AIDS; they can neither reverse the deadly course of the infection nor prevent further infections. However, both modern and traditional medicines – mainly derived from plant resources – are able, to a certain extent, to effectively treat AIDS symptoms and some of the typical opportunistic diseases of AIDS. In many areas HIV is predominantly transmitted through (unprotected) sexual intercourse. Because the virus exploits ‘one of the most complex areas of human life: our sexual relationships’ (UNAIDS, 2005), which are subject to many taboos, discretions and traditions, it is difficult though not impossible to effectively fight against its further spread.
