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Former US President George W Bush - Source: Reuters -
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A US programme launched during the Bush administration has cut
AIDS deaths by 10% in targeted African nations compared to their
neighbours and saved more than a million lives, US researchers
said.
The study tracked AIDS deaths and HIV infections in 12 African
countries getting aid under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS
Relief, or PEPFAR, during the four years after it was launched in
2003 as a five-year, $26.1 billion effort.
The program has made a major impact in saving lives but has done
little to reduce the number of people infected with the human
immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS, the researchers
found.
"It has averted deaths - a lot of deaths - with about a 10%
reduction compared with neighbouring African countries," Dr Eran
Bendavid of Stanford University School of Medicine in California,
whose study appears in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine,
said in a statement.
"However, we could not see a change in prevalence rates that was
associated with PEPFAR," Bendavid said.
Bendavid said the 10% decline translates to about 1.1 to 1.2
million deaths that have been prevented.
PEPFAR is the largest US foreign aid program devoted to a single
disease and has been lauded as a bright spot of former President
George Bush's tenure.
It pays for drug treatment for people infected with HIV as well
as other steps such as prevention efforts.
Last July, the US Congress voted to spend $83 billion to expand
PEPFAR for five years to treat and prevent AIDS, tuberculosis and
malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.
About 33 million people are infected with HIV and two million
die of AIDS each year, according to the World Health
Organization.
Palpable effect
Bendavid said in a telephone interview his study is one of the
first to look at whether PEPFAR has helped change the course of the
AIDS epidemic.
It offers concrete evidence that foreign aid programs can bring
about positive change, he said.
"It is making a palpable and discernible impact," he said.
The researchers gathered data on 12 countries targeted by the
program, and compared this to 29 other African nations.
They looked at the five years leading up to the start of the
program in 2003, and then from 2004 to 2007 after it began.
The African countries receiving PEPFAR aid that were tracked in the
study were: Botswana, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique,
Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and
Zambia.
PEPFAR initially provided aid in those 12 African countries and
three others elsewhere, and has since been expanded.
The researchers found that in the years leading up the start of the
program, death rates rose in all of the countries studied.
But as PEPFAR funding became available, the death toll declined
by more than 10% in the focus countries compared to countries not
participating in the program.
PEPFAR spent about $4,267 on treatment for each life saved, the
study found.
"This is not a trivial cost, and PEPFAR will need to make the
available resources go a long way to continue changing the course
of the epidemic," Bendavid said.
Bendavid said the program is reducing the death toll from HIV,
allowing people to work and support their families and local
economies.
"There has to be a very strong focus on prevention, especially when the number of people infected is still staggeringly high," Bendavid said.
