More Work to be Done on AIDS Relief

Washington Post, March 21, 2008

Letter to the Editor

Re: "The AIDS Relief Miracle"

To the Editor:

During the past five years, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief helped increase the number of people on treatment to 1.4 million in Africa—a laudable achievement. However, this does not alter the fact that for every person put on treatment, six people are newly infected. The idea that we don't need to redouble our prevention efforts divorces logic from reality.

Some of our own government agencies project that the addition of family planning services could double the effectiveness of programs that prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child. Unfortunately, family planning services for HIV-positive women were sacrificed on the altar of political expediency during congressional consideration of the global HIV-AIDS programs.

KATE BOURNE
Vice President, International Policy and Regional Programs
International Women's Health Coalition

Originally published in the Washington Post, March 21, 2008.  Reprinted with permission.