The New York Times questions the logic behind current global health priorities and considers the debate on whether “rich nations spend too much on AIDS, which requires lifelong medications, compared with diarrhoea and the other leading killer of children, pneumonia, both of which can be treated inexpensively.”
The article shows that while international commitments to combat HIV and AIDS make up almost half of donor financing for global health more than half the people with the disease who need drug treatment still are not getting it. Furthermore, while two million died from AIDS related complications in 2007 the toll of women and children who die of easily preventable or curable conditions is even higher. “Pneumonia alone killed 2 million children under age 5, and diarrhea 1.5 million more, out of the almost 9 million young children who died last year.”
Link to full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/world/30child.html?_r=2