Researchers Call International Fight Against AIDS ‘Greatly Incommensurate’ with Disease Severity
International efforts to quell the spread of HIV/AIDS globally are "greatly incommensurate with the severity of the epidemic," and increased funding through grants and other aid is necessary to implement successful prevention and treatment programs in the region, Harvard University Drs. Amir Attaran and Jeffrey Sachs write in an op-ed in the current edition of the Lancet. From 1996 to 1998, according to data that are "self-reported" to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, sub-Saharan African countries received about $69 million -- about $3 per infected individual -- in aid from "rich" countries, although the authors estimate that the real figure could be twice this amount at most. Total international aid from 1990 to 1998 for HIV/AIDS programs in low-income countries was "sporadic," and equaled about $74 million annually, $61 million of which came from grants. Much of this aid was "tied aid," which carried restrictions mandating that the money be spent on goods or services supplied by the donor country. While the private sector was "in many cases more generous than governments" in its allocations to HIV/AIDS programs, f
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