WHO Needs to Restructure its HIV/AIDS Policies, Efforts, Opinion Piece Says

The "greatest tribute" to World Health Organization Director-General Lee Jong-wook -- who died in Geneva on Monday after undergoing emergency surgery for a blood clot in his brain -- "would be a new commitment to implementing policies that work," Carol Adelman, director of the Center for Science in Public Policy at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., writes in an International Herald Tribune opinion piece. After WHO failed to achieve the 3 by 5 program goal, which aimed to have three million HIV-positive people in the developing world receiving antiretroviral drugs by 2005, the agency now must "reach out beyond its normal circles of consultants and government health ministries in order to work with local doctors, clinics, hospitals and businesses in fighting [HIV/]AIDS and other diseases," Adelman writes. "Sound medical and public health policies, not publicity and exaggerated numbers, should be WHO's priority," she says. "The world's global health authority must ... focus on testing and evaluation, responsible treatment and monitoring of [HIV/]AIDS patients" in order to "achieve the desired ... outcome" of "break[ing] down the real obstacles to [HIV/]AIDS treatments," Adelman writes. "It is time for WHO to rethink its strategies and modus operandi," Adelman says, concluding, "Good intentions are not good enough" (Adelman, International Herald Tribune, 5/23).

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