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People living with HIV in the developed countries of North America, Europe, and Australia have more reason than at any other time in the epidemic's history to be optimistic about being able to live longer and more productively. In those countries, most people either enjoy health insurance or have access to a variety of forms of public health care. There is no question, of course, that far too many people still slip through the cracks in even the developed countries' health care systems. But the HIV statistics and the lives of people living with HIV in developing countries can seem almost like reports from another world. Ninety percent or more of the people with HIV live in the developing countries of Africa and Asia, where health care budgets and facilities are a tiny fraction of those in North America or Europe. Below are a few of the facts of life for people with HIV in developing areas.

Presenters at a November 1994 symposium on issues of pain, argued that physicians too often undertreat or fail to treat pain in people with HIV. They suggested that the reasons include misplaced fear of inducing opiate addiction and of hastening death. Speakers emphasized that people with AIDS and their physicians must be persistent in diagnosing the causes and manifestations of pain, and must have the willingness to try different treatments and dosages to control pain and thus enhance patients' quality of life.