Philip Alcabes discusses myths of health, disease and risk.

AIDS Goes to Ground

This week, Donald McNeil, Jr. continues his praiseworthy efforts to highlight the sad reality of AIDS among the world’s poor.

In an article posted on the NY Times website Sunday (and published in the print edition Monday), McNeil reports on the inability of treatment programs in parts of Africa (this piece focuses on Uganda) to keep up with the need for AIDS medication as funding falls.   A very compelling video report accompanies the online version of the article.

An accompanying article explains the decline in funding, starting with the fall in the U.S. administration’s request on behalf of PEPFAR, as a Times graphic shows.

The number of new infections with the AIDS virus is estimated to be about 2 million per year now.  Some observers think annual incidence will rise as the population expands; even if not, the annual number of new AIDS virus infections is unlikely to fall in the near future, given present circumstances.

At the same time, the Times reports, anticipated PEPFAR funding is essentially flat to 2013, at $5 to $5.5 billion per year.  Financing for AIDS medications through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is in dire straits.

In terms of people, not dollars:  of the 33 million or so individuals who are infected with the AIDS virus worldwide, only about 4 million get regular antiretroviral therapy.

A few years ago, I wondered why,  after a quarter-century of AIDS and with the availability of effective treatment (at least in wealthy countries), Americans still didn’t see AIDS as an ordinary illness.

Now I have an answer:  we do see AIDS as ordinary… for poor countries.  To us, AIDS is no longer an epidemic problem worth our getting worked up over, or so it would seem judging by PEPFAR.  AIDS is like malaria, tuberculosis, or schistosomiasis.  It’s like diarrhea.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will put money into research or specific programs but we as a country will not need to care anymore.  We shift the funding away from the people in Africa, who are going to die young anyway, and put it into the hands of institutions (often, pharmaceutical companies) that can give us the promise of immunity from disaster.

The U.S. put less funding last year into PEPFAR than it did into preparations for H1N1 flu ($7.6 billion) or the school lunch program ($14.9 billion, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity), battleground in the war against childhood obesity.

Flu and obesity are epidemic.  They threaten American assumptions about ourselves.  “Epidemic” means:  crisis in our society.  Our epidemiologists say that malaria, diarrhea, and the other problems that collectively kill 20,000 or 25,000 people (mostly children) every day are endemic

“Endemic” means:  not our problem.

AIDS is endemic too, now.  It has gone to ground, gone the route of other once-dreaded infections that caused calamity in America and triggered heated debate (yellow fever, cholera, typhoid, TB) but have disappeared from our scene.  It’s their problem, now.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 6:42 am and is filed under Disease, epidemics, Health Professions, obesity, public health, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “AIDS Goes to Ground”

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Judith Baumel. Judith Baumel said: Alcabes responds to @nytimes piece on AIDS & Uganda w. a really haunting post: AIDS Goes To Ground" http://ht.ly/1KmM9 […]

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Asif Patel says:

I watched the video and the most appalling stament was : we don’t want expensive deaths. I had a collegue from Uganda in Florida State University , sad part is that his father died of AIDS. I had talk to him, as he is right now in Uganada, and discussed this video and article with him.
I have one serious question here. As already proved by Smith(2001), the patients who are already on the treatment, if stops it in a midway, are prone to the developement of resistant. Then what is the point in investing too much money in the beginning only?
It is highly true that India and Brazil can counter on thier own. I would like to add one more
thing here. In 2002, Cipla, the leading Indian Pharma company was in news as it was supplying HIV drugs to Africa at very cheaper rates. Can’t leading pharma companies all over the world come forward and help the most affected part of Africa like Cipla did in past?