US Aids programme saves lives
2009-04-07 14:51
Chicago - A US programme launched during the Bush administration has cut Aids deaths by 10% in targeted African nations compared to their neighbours and saved more than a million lives, US researchers said on Monday.
The study tracked Aids deaths and HIV infections in 12 African countries getting aid under the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, or PEPFAR, during the four years after it was launched in 2003 as a five-year, $15bn effort.
The programme has made a major impact in saving lives but has
done little to reduce the number of people infected with the
human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes Aids, the
researchers found.
"It has averted deaths - a lot of deaths - with about a 10% reduction compared with neighbouring African countries," Dr Eran Bendavid of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, whose study appears in the journal
Annals of Internal Medicine, said in a statement.
"However, we could not see a change in prevalence rates
that was associated with PEPFAR," Bendavid said.
Bendavid said the 10% decline translates to about 1.1 to 1.2 million deaths that have been prevented.
Bright spot in Bush tenure
PEPFAR is the largest US foreign aid programme devoted to a
single disease and has been lauded as a bright spot of former
President George W Bush's tenure. It pays for drug treatment
for people infected with HIV as well as other steps such as
prevention efforts.
Last July, the US Congress voted to spend $48bn to expand PEPFAR for five years to treat and prevent Aids, tuberculosis and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.
About 33 million people are infected with HIV and 2 million die
of Aids each year, according to the World Health Organisation.
Bendavid said in a telephone interview his study is one of
the first to look at whether PEPFAR has helped change the
course of the Aids epidemic. It offers concrete evidence that
foreign aid programmes can bring about positive change, he said.
"It is making a palpable and discernible impact," he said.
The researchers gathered data on 12 countries targeted by
the programme, and compared this to 29 other African nations.
They looked at the five years leading up to the start of the
programme in 2003, and then from 2004 to 2007 after it began.
Programme has since expanded
The African countries receiving PEPFAR aid that were
tracked in the study were: Botswana, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia,
Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa,
Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
PEPFAR initially provided aid in those 12 African countries
and three others elsewhere, and has since been expanded.
The researchers found that in the years leading up the
start of the programme, death rates rose in all of the countries
studied. But as PEPFAR funding became available, the death toll
declined by more than 10% in the focus countries
compared to countries not participating in the programme.
PEPFAR spent about $2 450 on treatment for each life saved,
the study found. "This is not a trivial cost, and PEPFAR will
need to make the available resources go a long way to continue
changing the course of the epidemic," Bendavid said.
Bendavid said the programme is reducing the death toll from
HIV, allowing people to work and support their families and
local economies. "There has to be a very strong focus on
prevention, especially when the number of people infected is
still staggeringly high," Bendavid said.
- Reuters
