Football and AIDS: it’s all about the odds
Like many football fans around the world, I just witnessed the impossible happen: Leicester City FC just won the English Premier League. It’s incredible to think that this club was playing in second division just 3 seasons ago, had one of the lowest payrolls (£48.2m), and were a 5000:1 odds to win the championship. Five-thousand to one! Let’s put that into perspective.
5000:1 — the chance Leicester City had to win the Premier League
250:1 — the odds of your child being a genius
117:1 — the odds of being on a plane flown by drunken pilot
3:1— the odds of a celebrity marriage lasting (good news for Jay-Z after Beyonce dropped Lemonade)
Overcoming impossible odds got me thinking about my own life, and more specifically, my line of work. I work for a global advocacy organization whose mission is to eradicate extreme poverty and preventable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. Statistically speaking, that’s no small task.
Needless to say I hear a lot of cynicism from people when I tell them about our mission of eliminating infectious diseases in the next 15 years. “That’s impossible” “yeah, good luck with that buddy” “hah, hasn’t happened yet- why would it happen now?” ….
I’m pretty sure Leicester City heard a lot of that too… Imagine if the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team never took the ice because the Russians were the odds on favorites to win, or if Jackie Robinson never broke the MLB color barrier because it was deemed impossible, or even more outlandishly- if Michael Jordan never jumped from half court to hit the game winner to save the Looney Tunes from eternal servitude!
Yes, I get it. There isn’t a straight line between sports story lines and real life. But hear me out, when it comes to eradicating HIV/AIDS by 2030, the impossible odds are actually favorable.
○ As of 2015– 15 million people are on antiretroviral (ARV) medicine, compared to only 1 million in 2005.
○ Between 2000 and 2014, new HIV infections dropped from 3.1 million to 2 million, that’s a 35% reduction.
○ Between 2000 and 2014, transmission of HIV from mother to child has dropped by 87% in some sub-Saharan countries, and the overall chance of transmission is now less than 5%.
○ In 2015, the HIV/AIDS epidemic reached another impossible milestone- the tipping point- where more people are now on antiretroviral medicine than are being newly infected. (source:UNAIDS)
When I look at these numbers the word impossible quickly starts to dissipate from my vocabulary.
The bottom line is this- HIV/AIDS elimination programs such as the Global Fund and PEPFAR have been working, and will continue to work in the effort to eradicate the disease by 2030.
So the next time someone tries to tell you that your work is impossible, remember that Leicester City beat the odds, the Miracle On Ice happened, Jackie Robinson’s #42 is plastered on stadiums all over America, the Toon Squad won, and of course, that there are over 9 million people still alive today thanks antiretroviral treatments.
Facing the impossible, I like my odds.
