HIV: Mind the gap

How can we bridge the gap in HIV transmission rates between developed and developing countries?

Sub-Saharan Africa carries 24% of the world's disease burden, which it manages with 3% of all health care providers. The figures are staggering: per 100,000 people, the U.S. has 200 times more doctors and 400 times more nurses than Mozambique, and two thirds of people living with HIV reside in sub-Saharan Africa as well as 90% of the babies born with HIV.

HIV tests and treatment have improved dramatically in the last decade. Effective tests to identify HIV infection in mothers and young babies once only available in resource rich countries now penetrate into small dusty villages in resource poor countries. Health and life sustaining anti-retroviral drugs which cost thousands of pounds per year, now cost less than £100.

Each year 1.5 million women living with HIV bear children and 400,000 of these children are infected with HIV by their mothers; in the UK, fewer children are born with HIV each year than in one busy hospital or health centre in South Africa. In developed countries, HIV/AIDS has become a chronic illness with affected people having life expectancies not very different than unaffected people. In developing countries, life expectancy has dropped into the 30s. Increasingly we know more about what to do but less about how to do it.

Why the differences? It depends on where you live. It depends on your income. It depends on what health services are made available. How can we bridge this gap?

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