While Africa battles to cope with overwhelming numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS, research has shown that the cost to turn the tide in sub-Saharan Africa pales in comparison to what the United States spends annually on obesity.

Africa is currently home to 70% of the adults and 80% of the children living with HIV in the world.

Already burdened by war, famine and other diseases, the continent has also buried three quarters of the more than 20 million people worldwide who have died of AIDS since the epidemic began.

Few African countries have expanded their HIV prevention programmes to the scale that would be needed to make a significant dent in the number of new infections.

But according to the latest Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) report, all hope is not lost. However, as with all things, it will cost money to turn the tide of the epidemic – for a start it will cost in the region of U$3-billion.

These costs pale in comparison to the U$52-billion the United States spends annually on coping with the medical consequences of obesity ‘€“ an amount more than 15 times that which would be needed to change the face of AIDS in Africa.

Recently, researchers tried to determine how much money would be needed to make a real difference to the AIDS epidemic in Africa. What would it cost to expand prevention programmes to a level where they might be expected to be truly effective at a population level, and to provide basic care and support for infected individuals and their families?

According to UNAIDS, if countries set ambitious, but achievable targets for the period 2000 and 2005, they will need the following resources annually to expand the response to AIDS to a scale that might have a major impact on the epidemic:

At least U$1,5-billion a year could make it possible to achieve massively higher levels of implementation of all the major components of successful prevention programmes for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. These would cover sexual, mother-to-child and transfusion-related HIV transmission, and would involve approaches ranging from awareness campaigns through the media to voluntary HIV counselling and testing, and the promotion and supply of condoms.

In the area of care for orphans and for people living with HIV/AIDS, costs depend very much on what kind of care is being provided. It is estimated that with at least U$1,5-billion a year, countries in sub-Saharan Africa could buy symptom and pain relief (palliative care) for at least half of AIDS patients in need of it. They could also buy treatment and prophylaxis for opportunistic infections for a somewhat smaller proportion, and provide care for AIDS orphans. At the moment, the coverage of care in many African countries is negligible, so providing services at these levels would be an enormous step forward.

Making a start on coverage with combination anti-retroviral therapy would add several billion dollars annually to the bill.

“With an investment of U$3-billion a year, the world can make a massive difference in the quality of life of millions of Africans,” UNAIDS said.

In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 3,8-million adults and children became infected with HIV during the past year, bringing the total number of people living there with HIV/AIDS to 25,3-million.

The UNAIDS report also revealed that over the same period, millions of Africans infected in earlier years began experiencing ill-health and 2,4-million people at a more advanced state of infection died of HIV-related illness.