WHO: More AIDS Clinics Needed

GENEVA, May 11, 2004

(AP) AIDS programs in developing countries put too little emphasis on
treatment, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, urging for
more small community-based clinics to be opened to treat HIV-infected
people.

An estimated 36 million to 46 million people are living with AIDS,
two-thirds of them in Africa, but only 440,000 people in developing
countries were receiving treatment by the end of 2003 — some 300,000
of them in Latin America, where Brazil has spearheaded AIDS
treatment, the U.N. health agency said in its annual report.

"Without treatment, all of them will die a premature and in most
cases painful death," the WHO said in the 169-page World Health
Report.

WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook said community-based treatment
should be added to disease prevention and care for sufferers in AIDS
programs.

"Future generations will judge our era in large part by our response
to the AIDS pandemic," Lee said.

"By tackling it decisively we will also be building health systems
that can meet the health needs of today and tomorrow. This is a
historic opportunity we cannot afford to miss," he added.

Antiretroviral drugs prolong the lives of people hit by AIDS. The
annual cost of treatment — $10,000 when the drugs were first
developed — has dropped to around $150.

The report said small-scale AIDS treatment programs are an ideal way
to spend the US$20.5 billion which has been gathered from donors by
WHO, the U.N.-administered Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria, and other programs launched by the World Bank and U.S.
President George W. Bush.

Treatment programs also help AIDS prevention efforts, the report
said, citing overwhelming demands for testing and counseling where
treatment has been made available.

Good counseling in turn leads to more effective prevention in those
who are uninfected, and significantly reduces the potential for HIV
carriers to pass on the infection, the report said.

Because anti-AIDS programs stimulate investment in broader health
services, they boost the fight against other killers, it said.

"The outcome can be better health for generations to come," the study
said.

The report features the case of Joseph Jeune, a 26-year-old farmer
from Lascahobas, central Haiti, who has AIDS.

In March 2003, Jeune was emaciated and his parents had already bought
his coffin. Six months later, thanks to antiretroviral drugs provided
by an AIDS treatment program in a hometown clinic, Jeune had gained
44 pounds and is pictured smiling in the report.

The U.N.-backed AIDS program which has helped Jeune also enabled
Haitian health authorities to refurbish local clinics and recruit new
staff.

"They are receiving up to 10 times more patients for general medical
care daily than before the project began," the report said.

Since its discovery in the 1980s, more than 20 million have died of
AIDS, mostly in poor countries. The HIV virus which causes AIDS is
spread mostly through unprotected sexual intercourse between men and
women.

The disease, which killed 3 million people last year, is now the
leading cause of death and lost years of productive life for people
aged 15-59 worldwide. One in 10 adults in Africa is infected with
HIV, and in the worst-affected nations of sub-Saharan Africa, life
expectancy has plunged to just 36 years because of the disease.

AIDS also is striking increasingly hard in Asia. Some 5 million
people are infected in India, and authorities and donors must move
fast, said Global Fund head Richard Feachem.

"There is nothing in place in India today which is of a scale or a
seriousness which will prevent a catastrophic epidemic unfolding,"
said Feachem. "We need to do a huge amount more in prevention,
testing and treatment if India is going to turn around the tidal wave
of HIV/AIDS which is breaking over it."

Lee, a South Korean tuberculosis expert who previously ran WHO's Stop
TB program, took office as chief of the 192-nation WHO last July.

Last September, he launched WHO's "Three by Five" program, which aims
by 2005 to provide 3 million people in developing countries with
antiretroviral drugs.

The study did not provide the 2003 death tolls for diseases other
than AIDS.

After AIDS, the leading global killers the previous year were: heart
disease, 1.3 million; tuberculosis, 1 million; stroke, 800,000. Road
accidents killed 800,000 people, mostly in developing countries.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/16/health/main617693.shtml