Report Explores How Funding Will Impact Cambodia's Efforts to Fight HIV/AIDS

"Despite Cambodia's success in driving down numbers of HIV infections, a new report [released by the Results for Development Institute] on the future of the disease in the country argues that further success is not guaranteed and that the government needs to focus on prevention and assume more of the financing of its AIDS programme," BMJ News reports (Moszynski, 12/21). "The authors compared several financing scenarios from now until 2031, four decades after HIV/AIDS was first detected in Cambodia," Agence France-Presse reports, noting that the report is to be presented to the Cambodian parliament on Tuesday (12/20). "Cambodia, in a best-case scenario, could reduce the infections to 1,000 people a year in 2031 -- a half-century after AIDS was first identified. That is down from an estimated 2,100 infections last year and from the peak of 15,000 a decade ago," according to a press release about the report. However, "the report's authors also say that if Cambodia's AIDS efforts stall and current coverage of key services declines, especially in carefully targeted prevention, the number of infections could climb to 3,800 a year in 2031 -- nearly a four-fold increase over the best-case scenario," the release states (12/20).

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