The United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution calling for education and condom-distribution programs to reduce HIV infection rates among UN peacekeeping troops. Although the resolution addresses a relatively tiny segment of the worldwide AIDS pandemic, it represents a major symbolic step for the security council, which had never before made a disease the focus of a resolution. The move comes on the heels of a White House announcement classifying AIDS as a threat to US national security (Nature Med 6, 117, 2000), a move expected to draw increased attention—and funding—to research on the disease.The resolution was initiated by Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the United Nations, who began to express concern about AIDS among peacekeeping troops in 1992. The issue remained dormant until Holbrooke visited Africa late last year. Mary Ellen Glynn, a staffer who accompanied the ambassador on that trip, says that "the rates of [HIV] infection were much higher for UN peacekeepers than for the general population." The troops appear to contract the disease primarily from local prostitutes in the areas where they are stationed.