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Contributions from
the Column
Monitor
How UN missions impact
on local economies
Trade liberalisation has
born little fruit
Conference: “E-Learning
Africa 2006”
Wieczorek-Zeul and
Morales meet
Solidarity and productivity
Debate on debt relief
AIDS medication:
progress with provision
Bird flu: EU increases
export subsidies
A new role for the IMF
05/2006
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[ News ]
AIDS medication: progress with provision
Three months after the deadline of the “3 by 5” strategy to provide antiretroviral drugs to people infected with HIV, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) have taken stock. The goal of the initiative was to provide three million AIDS patients in developing countries with drugs by the end of 2005. It was missed by a long shot. At the cut-off date, 1.3 million HIV-infected persons in Asia, Africa and Latin America were on medication, compared with a total number of 6.5 million, who need treatment. Nevertheless, the WHO and UNAIDS do not consider the programme a failure. “3 by 5” significantly boosted global efforts to improve access to AIDS drugs. Two years after the end of 2003, the number of patients receiving treatment had more than tripled from 400,000. In Latin America, 68 % of patients are now on medication – the highest quota of all developing regions. In sub-Saharan Africa, the most severely affected region, the number of patients receiving treatment increased eight-fold to over 800,000. The greatest shortcoming, according to WHO and UNAIDS, is inadequate provision of drugs to expectant mothers, because treatment would prevent the infection from spreading on to their children. Both organisations estimate that funding needed for the fight against AIDS up to 2007, which is not yet covered by donor pledges, at $ 18 billion.
(ell)
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