Critical choices in financing the response to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The HIV pandemic will enter its fiftieth year in 2031. Despite much progress, there are thirty-three million infected people worldwide, and 2.3 million adults were newly infected in 2007. Without a change in approach, a major pandemic will still be with us in 2031. Modelling carried out for the AIDS 2031 project suggests that funding required for developing countries to address the pandemic could reach $35 billion annually by 2031-three times the current level. Even then, more than a million people will still be newly infected each year. However, wise policy choices focusing on high-impact prevention and efficient treatment could cut costs by half. Investments in new prevention tools and major behaviour-change efforts are needed to spur more rapid advances. Existing donors, middle-income countries with contained epidemics, philanthropists, and innovative financing could help bridge the likely funding gap.
Looking at what might be done differently to alter significantly the course of the HIV pandemic in order to achieve by 2031 few new infections, nearly all those in need of treatment receiving it, and children orphaned by AIDS assisted to lead normal lives, this costs and financing group lays out some stark choices. Modelling of four scenarios – rapid scale-up, current trends, hard choices for prevention, and structural change – reveals that at best 1 million new adult infections will occur in 2031. The ‘game-changers’, while waiting for a vaccine or cure, are high reach, effective prevention programmes for people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men, people who sell sexual services, and increasing numbers of discordant couples as the epidemic matures. Anticipating that resource requirements are set to increase rapidly over the next 5 to 8 years, six policy actions are described to expand financing for HIV in low- and middle-income countries. This is a sobering but essential read for us all.
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