The law can seem remote, arcane, the stuff of specialists. But it isn't, because for those of us who live in democracies, the law begins with us.

Where you criminalize people living with HIV or those at greatest risk, you fuel the epidemic.

The patriarchy is alive and well in Egypt and the wider Arab world.

Throughout its history, Islam has borrowed and adapted from other civilizations, both ancient and modern.

Some countries have good laws, laws which could stem the tide of HIV. The problem is that these laws are flouted. Because stigma gives unofficial license to treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk unlike other citizens.

Laws that treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk with respect start with the way that we treat them ourselves: as equals. If we are going to stop the spread of HIV in our lifetime, then that is the change we need to spread.

HIV brings out the best and the worst in humanity, and the laws reflect these attitudes.