No reason not to get anti-retroviral drugs to the poor

Addressing the first session of the 14th International Conference on HIV/AIDS, Dr Bernhard Schwartlander, director of HIV/AIDS at the WHO said Brazil had shown the way in that it actually cost less money to give people anti-retrovirals that to just let them die.

“They know if they do not pay for care now, they will pay dearly later.”

An article published in The Lancet two days ago shows that without a comprehensive package of interventions there would be another 45 million people living with HIV/AIDS by 2010.

However, if countries – both rich and poor – lived up to the commitment they made at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), 29 million of these infections or more than 60% could be averted.

Delaying this response by just one year is going to cost another five million lives.

“The time for excuses has run out. Challenges remain – that’s why we’re here. But the pieces are finally coming together.”

He said the UNGASS declaration had given unprecedented political commitment, price reductions had placed drugs within the reach of the poor, the use of simplified regimens and monitoring was considered to be feasible, major new funding opportunities were opening and there was an extraordinary community of activists to help.

Schwartlander singled out South Africa’s efforts to address the epidemic and said it had been one of a number of countries that had been successful in bringing down its infection rates among the young.

But he reminded delegates that of the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS, 94% of them were in developing countries.

Four countries in sub-Saharan Africa – Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Botswana – have one out of three adults or more carrying the virus.

“This means that in Francistown, or Gaborone, or Mbabane, every second or third person sitting on a bus, or walking down the street, is HIV-positive.

“It is almost impossible for me to get my mind around these kinds of figures.”

He revealed that by 2020, more than 25 percent of the workforce in some countries might be lost to AIDS.

Some hard-hit countries reported HIV prevalence as high as 40 percent among soldiers. In Kenya, AIDS accounts for up to three out of every four deaths in the police force.

In education HIV/AIDS had the potential to erode both the supply of teachers, as well as the demand for education, and therefore set back a fundamental aspect of development.

Teacher death rates in some countries have doubled or trebled in recent years. Swaziland has estimated that it would have to train 13 000 new teachers over the next 17 years just to keep services at their 1997 levels – that’s 7 000 more than it would have had to train if there were no AIDS deaths.

This article is courtesy of Health-e News Service.