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Please click on AIDS Primer, if you do not see the A-Z navigation links, specific for this section. This page is a part of a much larger website -- "Treasures of the Internet" -- that includes other health-related sections, as well as other more general sections on the arts, literature, science, etc. If this is your first visit, please read "navigating this site", for further guidance.
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To date, there is still no vaccine nor any effective cure against HIV infection. What are available are antiretroviral and combination drug therapies that can slow the progression from HIV infection to AIDS status; while other available drugs combat complications from AIDS-related illnesses and other opportunistic infections. These arsenals of drugs, HIV screening and improved health care to contain AIDS- related illnesses and opportunistic infections have been instrumental in the significant decline of HIV infection and deaths in many of the Western countries, like the
However, the drugs and health care to manage AIDS come at a terribly high price. The combination drug therapies alone cost about $10,000-12,000 per person annually in the United States. Thus, drug pharmaceutical companies were pressured to lower the price of these drugs for less developed countries (LDCs). Faced with a concerted well-publicized pressure from LDCs and AIDS activists alike, some of the giant pharmaceutical companies caved-in. They withdrew from fighting the South African law allowing local manufacture or importation of retroviral drugs still under patent. More recently, Brazil, which already has a thriving local generic AIDS drug industry, has entered into an agreement that lowered the price of some of antiretroviral drugs still under patent by 40%. The latter would bring down the annual drug cost to about $4,000-6,000, still way beyond the reach of most people from the less developed countries (LDCs).
Even if the price of the antiretroviral drugs alone could be reduced to about $36 a month (or $432 a year), the drug cost alone for each person would be beyond the reach of most of the poor people living with AIDS in less developed countries (LDCs). There are also other costs to consider, other than drugs, in the fight against AIDS -- HIV screening, health care, training of personnel, establishment of the health and distribution infrastructure, education and counselling of target groups and people living with HIV and AIDS, etc. [Visit "
While some countries, like Brazil, have instituted a drug subsidy program, such an ambitious plan would be beyond the reach of most less developed countries (LDCs) that are already saddled with previous huge international debts, already crippling their economies and future development plans.
The fact is, there are no easy answers. Notwidthstanding the "", so far proposed, there is no bold "Marshall Plan" -- with adequate worldwide resources and political will -- to make the HIV/AIDS epidemic go away.
The tragic reality is that millions of people will continue to get infected with HIV and the worldwide population of those infected with HIV would go up even much higher than the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS. With very limited resources in less developed countries, any solution to combat HIV/AIDS leads to choosing the few who are going to live longer but doom most of those infected with HIV/AIDS to slow agonizing death from AIDS- related illnesses and opportunistic infections.
This gloomy prognosis must not be perceived as fatalistic despair. Rather, it should become the foundation of more realistic approaches -- to aspire for solutions that are feasible -- given the limited resources and apparent worldwide apathy to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Evolving these realistic approaches begins with understanding the current status of the epidemic -- the "root causes" of and contributory factors, the target groups, realistic estimate of international and national resources and manpower that could be reallocated to deal with the problem, creation of distribution and health infrastructure, education, screening & preventive measures to combat further escalation of the epidemic, etc.
Read part 2:
Please click on AIDS Primer, if you do not see the A-Z navigation links, specific for this section. This page is a part of a much larger website -- "Treasures of the Internet" -- that includes other health-related sections, as well as other more general sections on the arts, literature, science, etc. If this is your first visit, please read "navigating this site", for further guidance.
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Footnotes:
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Untitled For a more comprehensive overview, visit the latest AIDS Epidemic Update, from UNAIDS. View also a poster demographics of AIDS worldwide, from 1984 - 1999. -
Untitled Caution & Disclaimer: The primary sites cited in the "A to Z navigation links", as well as in the major sections (see left navigation links), were written or compiled by scientists and clinicians, but some of the hyperlinked sites (within the primary links) were not always written by scientists nor clinicians. Also, the contents of some of the hyperlinked sites were not always based from scientific research or clinical trials but more from personal experience of or interpretation of the literature by people with HIV/AIDS or caregivers and others with interest about the disease. Therefore, exercise caution when using any information provided. Be sure to discuss them with your primary health care provider.
Because of the nature of some forms of the transmission of HIV, the language used in some of the hyperlinked sites can be very explicit.
