AIDS Meeting Ends With Hope; Formerly Inconceivable Programs to Start This Year

Delegates departing the 14th International AIDS Conference in Barcelona carried with them the first glimmers of hope that the world may finally be ready to take on the disease that emerged 21 years ago.

Programs that once seemed inconceivable will commence within the coming months. They will include efforts to massively increase AIDS prevention; to bring AIDS drugs to hundreds of thousands of people in the world's poorest countries; to create a global arbiter of AIDS spending; and to extract billions of dollars annually from the world's wealthy nations.

There is a dawning realization that what has been done to fight the epidemic in wealthier nations can probably be done anywhere. "If we can get Coca-Cola and cold beer to every remote corner of Africa, it should not be impossible to do the same with drugs," said Joep Lange, president of the International AIDS Society.

In the two years since the conference was held in South Africa, much more has been learned about successful strategies for prevention in high-prevalence areas. Guidelines for three-drug antiretroviral therapy have been simplified to the point at which there is essentially no setting too poor to use them if they are available.

The price cut agreed to by five pharmaceutical companies (later joined by a sixth) is generally considered the event that began to move rhetoric toward action. Despite reducing the price of drugs in poor countries to one-tenth their cost in rich ones, health economists believe the price must fall further to about $30-40 a year before their cost ceases to be an impediment.

Also generating world resolve is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which currently has $2.1 billion in pledges. The fund will be forced to arbitrate on many levels, and much of the success or failure of global AIDS efforts will rest with it. Still, its power to unify is immense. Mexican Health Minister Julio Frenk called on middle-income countries to contribute as well. "It has to become truly a global effort where everyone participates," he said.

Back to other CDC news for July 15, 2002

Previous Updates