Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, published three new blog posts last week examining issues discussed at the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012). The mood at the conference was "strangely optimistic," as scientists, politicians, and advocates discussed the "end of AIDS," she writes in one, adding, "The pandemic will not be over until the number of new infections hits zero, and the annual death toll plummets to insignificant levels." In another, she states, "The newfound optimism that imbues this gathering of some 25,000 people in Washington, D.C., is based on a few genuinely important breakthroughs. But while these insights offer hope of saving millions of lives and limiting a tidal wave of human suffering, they do not add up to the much-vaunted 'end of AIDS.'" In a third, Garrett examines funding for the HIV/AIDS response and describes a debate that took place among experts and economists at the World Bank (7/27).

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