Please note that this article was written last week before Charlie Sheen's Today show interview.

A famous man has HIV.

There’s another 39million people on the planet with the same condition, most of them without the proper care and treatment.

But it’s the famous man who’ll get your attention. He is, after all, famous.

Being famous we can also assume he’s rich, impossibly good-looking, and has excellent teeth.

Here, again, he differs significantly from everyone else on Earth with HIV.

We do know that he lives in Hollywood, where things are so cushy the life expectancy of 80 years is higher even than the rest of the USA.

In Lesotho, where 23% of the population are infected with HIV, the life expectancy is just 49.

And before anyone says “well, it’s Lesotho, innit?” the death rate from HIV and AIDS in Lesotho is 345 times worse than that it is in the USA.

This is not because Lesotho does not know about HIV.

Lesotho has the UN, quangos, charities, and Prince Harry all doing their best to help. The rate of new infections has dropped.

Unfortunately the rate of deaths has not, because HIV patients in Lesotho can’t get the whizzy drugs the western world has spent the past 30 years developing.

HIV in Lesotho predominantly affects young people, and young women in particular. Many are victims of rape, others sell their bodies due to extreme poverty.

Men don’t make the effort to protect the girls or themselves, and as women are poorer they find it harder to get treatment. Fewer than a quarter of people with HIV in Lesotho get the drugs they need.

(Image: Cavendish Press)

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(These drugs, by the way, aren’t a luxury item. They don’t just keep the patient alive.

They also reduce infectiousness, cutting the spread of the disease as well as prolonging life so those with it can carry on paying taxes. They’re beneficial for all of us, HIV or not.)

(Image: Ian Forsyth)

In comparison to Lesotho, the American HIV epidemic affects 0.9% of its population.

Pretty much everyone in America knows about HIV, and how not to get it. Those who do are more likely to already be marginalised for other reasons – they’re more likely to be black, to inject drugs, and to be male homosexuals.

Because of all the discrimination these groups get, as well as the cost of healthcare in the good ol’ USA, only 37% of them get access to the drugs they need.

Better than Lesotho, but not if you’re black or poor and don’t have the health insurance.

(Image: Getty)

And then we have this famous man. What do we know about him?

Well, he’s not living in Lesotho.

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He’s not under-privileged, gay, and from the way he’s been described I don’t think he’s black either.

He’s described as a “megastar” and the few members of that club who are black are heavily outnumbered by those who aren’t.

According to Radar Online, which broke the story, he is a middle-aged playboy who contracted the disease thanks to a “dangerous lifestyle” involving injecting drugs, sex with prostitutes, tattooing and “high risk sexual practices”.

Not knowing his identity we don't know if that's true, but if he did then it was despite having the benefits of developed-world schooling, public health campaigns, and the many dollars you need to get health insurance and regular testing in America.

He was, in just about every way you can think of short of going to Lesotho to get laid, asking for HIV.

(Image: Getty)

To compound his stupidity, after diagnosis he allegedly went on a shagging bender and if that's true he may have willfully infected more people.

And to compound his utter lack of sense and judgement now the secret is being gossiped about he’s “retreated to his mansion” in a self-pitying weepy mess in a fret about being sued by his former sexual partners.

While doing so, he is reportedly taking a cocktail of the strong and expensive retroviral drugs he needs to stay alive.

This man, whoever he is, has an excellent chance of a long and productive life.

(Image: Getty)

In the 34 years since AIDS was discovered – having apparently crossed the species barrier from chimpanzees to humans via the bushmeat trade – 25million people have died in incredible distress and pain.

As it spread into the developed world whole governments threw billions of research dollars at it, scientists devoted their careers to a cure and Elton John threw more fundraisers than I’ve had hot dinners.

In 2011 I interviewed Labour peer Chris Smith, who on being diagnosed with HIV in 1987 thought he had a year or so to live and has instead, thanks to 10 pills twice a day, gone on to become a cabinet minister and peer of the realm.

I know people with HIV who are happy, healthy, and in relationships with people who are not. The drugs, and the openness of people like Lord Smith, have made HIV a thing that can be lived with rather than feared.

(Image: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire)

This famous man is lucky enough to be able to do the same.

He could live so long that he dies of something else entirely.

He could marry and have children, without infecting his family.

He could walk the streets without being spat at or shunned, thanks to other people’s charitable works.

(Image: CEN)

He is also famous enough to help others.

He could talk about it – the whole world would listen.

He could help out Elton – with the added benefit of elbowing Liz Hurley out of our lives.

He could say, this was me, don’t let it be you, I’m going to live but others aren’t.

He could give some of his millions to help people in places like Lesotho or, if he doesn't like long journeys, downtown Los Angeles.

(Image: WireImage)

But he’s not.

He’s in his mansion, all woe-is-me despite reportedly knowing about this for years, instructing his lawyers and fearful his fans will hate him when they find out if all this is true.

And they will, but not because he has HIV.

They’ll hate him because he’s an arsehole who refuses to accept the consequences of his actions.

They’ll hate him because he allegedly had unprotected sex despite knowing he could infect partners with a disease that, without help, could kill them horribly.

They’ll hate him because his response is to pity himself when it’s not only his own stupid fault, but there are others who need that pity more.

His identity will leak. There’ll be a chat with Oprah. We’ll be asked to feel sorry for him, rather than the other 39million people who don’t get to sit on her sofa.

Well, I don’t feel sorry for him.

(Image: Rex)

I’m only sorry that I can’t make him switch places with a 15-year-old rape victim from Lesotho who didn’t ask for any of it and deserves a chance to make something of her life.

I’m only sorry he won’t find it impossible to get treatment, that he won’t have to come out as gay in an intolerant community, and that his family won’t abandon him to rot in a squat.

I’m sorry I can’t strangle him with a cheap condom he couldn’t be bothered to use, and I can only hope his former lovers sue him so hard that he does at least die in the same misery, poverty and pain as so many others do.

He thinks he's unlucky. I wish he was.