A response to IRIN/PlusNews list of six potholes in the road to significantly increasing HIV treatment coverage in Africa.
1. Cost:
The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has estimated that US$ 28 billion to US$ 50 billion would be needed globally every year from 2010 to 2015 in order to progressively reach universal access targets for HIV/AIDS by 2015. One-third of this will contribute towards the cost of the drugs.
The figure may sound “staggering” but it needs to be put in perspective with a few other figures such as:

The cost of …

HAART for HIV Prevention, an Overview
(reproduced with permission)

Despite the interesting results of an HIV vaccine trial in Thailand (RV144), HIV prevention is still limited to a small number of options many of which are not bullet-proof. Biomedical interventions based on vaccines and microbicides are still a long shot away. Conversely, treatment is working well in bringing HIV-infected people back to a normal life and potentially reducing the risk of HIV transmission by reducing their viral load. The use of antiretroviral drugs as a means …

OPINION. One objection against the use of ARV treatment for HIV prevention is that it puts people on treatment whilst they may clinically not need it. My first reaction to that is to ask when is it clinically relevant to treat an HIV infected person? So far the various guidelines produced are clear and based on the CD4 count. But the guidelines have changed during the years and the goalpost has been moved from below 200 to below 350 and soon to below 500 and is reaching the mean Cd4 …

Watch this provocative TED talk and read the accompanying article at CNN.

The Compassionate Conundrum by Elizabeth Pisani

Rating 3.00 out of 5

Yesterday’s posting may have fooled some (I hope not so) but nevertheless contained some truths that would not  surprise many of those working in the field. Later that day, Bloomberg published an interesting piece about Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and the forthcoming results of several clinical trials testing the approach.
On the outcomes of PrEP and expectated financial returns for the Pharmaceutical industry, Simeon Bennett and Tom Randall quoted Boston-based Josh Schimmer, an analyst at Leerink Swann & Co saying that “The approach may help curb the AIDS pandemic in poor …