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African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
Volume 6, Issue 10 NEWSLETTER October 2011
FEATURED ARTICLES
HIV Costs May Hit $35 Billion a Year, Group Fears
By Kate Kelland
July 18, 2010
Reuters
LONDON — The International HIV/AIDS Alliance
warned on Saturday that the annual cost of tackling the
HIV epidemic could balloon to $35 billion by 2030 if
governments fail to invest in efficient, targeted and costeffective
prevention measures.
On the eve of an international conference on AIDS in
Vienna, the Alliance said the AIDS virus, which already
infects around 33.4 million people across the world, was
a "costly time-bomb" for families, governments and
donors.
"For every two people who get treatment, five others get
infected. At this rate, spending for HIV will rise from $13
billion now to between $19 and $35 billion in just 20
years time," Alvaro Bermejo, executive director of the
Alliance, said in a statement.
International AIDS Alliance brings together AIDS
charities and advocacy groups from across the world.
Bermejo said authorities running national AIDS programs
around the world needed to increase HIV prevention by
tackling the barriers that stop marginalized groups -- such
as drugs users, prostitutes and gay men in some countries
-- from getting HIV treatment and services.
If they targeted resources at those most affected they
could "cut more new infections and still have savings to
put into scaling up treatment," he said.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes
AIDS is transmitted during sex, in blood and on needles
and in breast milk. It gradually wears down the immune
system and can take years to cause symptoms, and has
killed 25 million people since the pandemic began in the
early 1980s.
The Alliance said its workers had seen how drug users in
Ukraine are harassed when trying to get drug substitution
therapy, and how doctors prescribing substitutes for
them are jailed.
In Africa -- the region most heavily affected by HIV,
accounting for 67 percent of all people living with the
virus -- its staff were seeing an increasing trend to
criminalize men who have sex with men in countries
such as Uganda and Malawi, it said.
Measures such as offering clean needles or drug
substitutes to injecting drug addicts and providing HIV
testing and advice services to them can help to reduce
the spread of the AIDS virus. Ukraine has one of the
world's fastest growing HIV epidemics, mostly due to
infection among drug users.
Treating those with HIV with cocktails of AIDS drugs
can also help to stop more people from getting infected,
but AIDS treatment programs in developing countries
are struggling to get the funding they need as wealthy
donor nations cut budgets to reduce deficits following
the global recession.
Bermejo said the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of
prevention programs for those at most vulnerable to
HIV "are too often hindered by repressive laws,
policies, human rights violations and discrimination
and exclusion."
He said HIV prevention steps should be taken as well
as, and not instead of treatment services.
Latest data from 2008 showed the annual number of
new HIV infections was 2.7 million, the same as in
2007. This is down from 3.0 million in 2001.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38296744/ns/health-aids/
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-38- Traditional African Clinic October 2011