You can have an epidemic in a state. You can have it in a region. You can have it in a country where the critical level of disease passes a certain threshold and we call that an epidemic threshold.

The nature of a protective immune response to HIV is still unclear. Because in a very, very unique manner, unlike virtually any other microbe with which we're familiar, the HIV virus has evolved in a way that the immune system finds it very difficult, if not impossible, to deal with the virus.

You can have an epidemic in a state. You can have it in a region. You can have it in a country where the critical level of disease passes a certain threshold and we call that an epidemic threshold.

What has happened over the years is that scientists have now developed AIDS therapeutic capabilities, as well as prevention, and we've linked prevention and treatment in a way that if you fast-forward 30 years form '88 to now, we can say without hyperbole that we have the tools, if implemented the way they could be implemented, to theoretically, essentially end the epidemic as we know it now.

You help someone's health, and you prevent them from infecting others.

We feel confident that there won't be an outbreak. The people who were around the patient are now being identified and traced by the CDC and by the state health authorities. ... you get people, you identify them, and you observe and monitor them daily to determine if they develop symptoms If they do, then you put them under isolation to determine if, in fact, they are infected. And if you do that properly, you can shut down any outbreak.

Im generally considered a conservative in my predictions for disease.