This week, my wife Teresa and I experienced an up close and personal reminder of how far the world has yet to travel to defeat the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

Visiting the Umgeni Primary School and talking with people in poverty-stricken Kwangcolosi near Durban, South Africa, we saw both the most inspiring and the most heartbreaking, the most courageous and the most frustrating, realities of a global struggle to defeat a global scourge.

We were inspired by the work of the Valley Trust caregivers who devote their lives to helping the region’s AIDS orphans.

Our hearts broke when we met orphans left with no choice but to assume adult responsibilities at a tender age, caring for their younger brothers and sisters.

We saw first-hand the courage of many single mothers scratching out subsistence in mud houses, their husbands lost to a horrific disease.

Given the glaring medical needs, we were surprised to hear from those on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS pandemic that their greatest challenge was a public relations battle to educate their communities.

Many feared alienating their own government, which they said did not want to tell the truth about the killer disease.

I asked why such vital information would be withheld. The answer: They do not want to give the correct information because they are in denial.

While AIDS has done the killing, the disease’s best allies have been denial, indifference and ignorance, and we must fight them everywhere.

World AIDS Day is an important moment to take stock of where we stand in the fight against HIV/AIDS and where we need to be. It is a day to stand up against all that still holds us back from fulfilling our moral responsibility.

Millions across Africa have stories just like those Teresa and I heard.

Twelve million African children have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. Some 30 percent of the world’s orphans today are AIDS orphans, many raised by what have all-too-commonly become known as AIDS grannies. Much has been made of the United Nations revising world AIDS numbers downward, but the reality is that 33 million people worldwide are still infected with HIV, equal to the entire population of New England and New York. More than 2.1 million people died of AIDS last year, and 2.5 million will likely be infected this year.

Yes, we are making progress.

In 2002, I worked with former Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist on a comprehensive HIV/AIDS bill that laid the foundation for PEPFAR, a program in 15 countries to assist 10 million people, including 5 million AIDS orphans, to prevent 7 million new infections and to help provide lifesaving anti-retrovirals to 2 million people.

Today, according to PEPFAR’s coordinator for Kenya, we are well on track to meet or exceed all those goals, but there is still a great deal more to be done. President Bush’s proposal to spend $30 billion over the next five years is a step in the right direction.

But the obstacles today are not just financial. We cannot fight HIV/AIDS with our hands tied.

For years, Washington has blocked better educational efforts by putting ideology before science. We squandered an opportunity to help convince nations like South Africa not to repeat our shameful denial of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s - and to commit their countries to saving lives and not just saving face. There is no fixing a problem when political leaders refuse to admit it exists.

We must also integrate our fight against HIV/AIDS into a larger capacity-building project. Even an HIV/AIDS vaccine would do little good without roads to deliver it to remote villages and rural areas. This will be an enduring challenge.

This World AIDS Day, let’s reaffirm our moral obligation to help the sick - not just if they have money to pay for it, and not just here in America. Fighting HIV/AIDS should be a first-tier priority of our foreign policy, and an ultimate measurement of our values.