Global cost of HIV treatment and prevention could reach $35 billion by 2031

"Without a serious change in approach AIDS will still be a major pandemic and funding required in resource-poor countries could reach an estimated $35 billion annually, three times the current level, by 2031—the fiftieth year of the pandemic— according to modelling carried out for the AIDS 2031 project by Robert Hecht and colleagues and published in the November/December edition of Health Affairs.

"Results from the Cost and Financing Working Group, AIDS 2031, headed by Robert Hecht were presented at a Health Affairs briefing on Capitol Hill ‘Meeting HIV/AIDS cost demands: is the global response working?’ in Washington, DC on November 10 2009. Others presenting at the briefing included: Anthony S. Fauci, Tom Walsh, Daniel Wikler, Alan E. Greenberg and Shannon L. Hader.

"Results support policy choices focusing on investments in high-impact prevention for most-at-risk groups—sex workers, men who have sex with men, and injecting drug users—, efficient treatments, new prevention tools together with significant behaviour-change efforts. These could help cut costs by half as well as help control the pandemic."

Read more in Aidsmap, November 10, 2009.