Thirty years ago, I was one of the
first foreign television reporters to report on AIDS in Africa. At that time,
the disease was a death sentence. There was no effective treatment. But, at a
speed that surprised quite a few in the medical profession, effective drugs
began to appear, and, though still dangerous, the virus ceased to look
all-conquering.
Now the United Nations says life
expectancy of those with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, has grown by 20
years since 2001, thanks to a sharp increase in access to effective drugs, the
price of which have fallen dramatically. In 2000, the cost per year was
$14,000. Now it is just $100.
In 2000, fewer than 700,000 of
those with the virus were getting effective treatment. Now the figure is 15 million.
The executive director of the UN’s AIDS programme, Michel Sidibé (pictured), describes
this as ‘one of the greatest achievements in the history of global health.’
Not that everything in the garden
is rosy. Up to 41.4 million are now infected by the virus, the majority of them
in sub-Saharan Africa. So most are not getting access to treatment, and experts
warn that if we do not invest more money, deaths will start increasing again.
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