Addressing the HIV/AIDS Pandemic

Overview

The Bush administration’s $15 billion AIDS initiative has received much attention for its boldness and size.

Princeton N. Lyman

But, according to this indispensable Council Special Report, it will not succeed unless it is folded into a broader and longer-term commitment to developing basic health systems in affected countries. To successfully battle AIDS--one of the most pressing threats known to mankind--the effort must also go beyond health to address social and economic factors that drive the spread of the disease.

President Bush’s pledge is commendable from a humanitarian and human rights perspective. Still, the report, produced in consultation with experts from more than 30 private and government health organizations, concludes that the long-term costs of treatment ($9 billion to $12 billion a year) will run well into the middle of the twenty-first century and allocation of responsibilities need to be spelled out to the public, Congress, and the entire international community. “A humanitarian catastrophe of incomparable proportions, the pandemic is also a threat to global economic and geopolitical stability and a critical strategic threat to the United States,” the report asserts.

The report makes seven specific recommendations to make the U.S. anti-AIDS program sustainable and successful, including launching a long-term effort to build politically and financially sustainable basic health systems in the affected countries; being guided by the best available scientific evidence and being “ideology-free” in selecting and administering prevention and treatment programs; and pursuing a comprehensive approach to HIV/AIDS, paying particular attention to the factors fundamental to the pandemic’s spread, such as the vulnerability of women and girls.