Henry Bauer
Darin BrownFOLLOW THE MONEY
Posted by Henry Bauer on Friday, 6 June 2008
HIV/AIDS has an unparalleled ability to generate grants and gifts.
The Global Fund has approved nearly $29 million, and actually disbursed already $16 million, to help fight HIV/AIDS in the hard-hit land of Kyrgyzstan.
According to the CIA Fact Book, by 2003 there were in Kyrgyzstan an estimated 3900 people living with HIV/AIDS, there had been fewer than 200 HIV/AIDS deaths, and the prevalence was estimated at < 0.1% (as low as anywhere in the world). So the Global Fund’s allocation to Kyrgyzstan, at $29 million, represents about $150,000 per death and about $7000 per patient.
While that may seem excessively generous, perhaps it was guided by the budgeting of the National Institutes of Health, which called in 2007 for about $180,000 per AIDS death in the United States (allocations for other diseases were, for example, just under $10,000 per cancer death and $2600 per cardiovascular death—see STOPPING THE HIV/AIDS BANDWAGON—-Part II, 1 February 2008.
The threat to Kyrgyzstan from HIV/AIDS is further illustrated by the suspected infection of 26 babies in two hospitals (HIV-POSITIVE CHILDREN, HIV-NEGATIVE MOTHERS, 25 November 2007) and the even more terrifying fact that these babies might then infect their mothers through being breast-fed (BABIES INFECT MOTHERS; CRAZY THEORY RUINS LIVES, 12 April 2008 ).
