Response to the AIDS Pandemic — A Global Health Model

Abstract

The unprecedented global response to the AIDS pandemic can serve as a model for the response to other global health threats. For example, the global AIDS response incorporated a multisectoral approach that involved public health officials, clinicians, politicians, and leaders in civil society, business and labor, the armed forces, and the law, working in concert and with financial resources in excess of $15 billion per year 8 to reduce the incidence of HIV infection and associated mortality. The response to the pandemic required a coordinated global effort, which has been led by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) since 1996. This transformational response helped redefine what is meant by health diplomacy and led to a new culture of accountability in international development. Tiered pricing of medicines became commonplace, and renewed optimism provided a boost for research on other neglected global health issues. This response to the AIDS pandemic highlighted the shortage of health care workers, inadequate availability of essential medications, and weaknesses in primary health care and public health systems. The stigma of HIV infection and inequities in the care of those infected focused attention on social and medical equity and human rights. Although it has been argued that the provision of health care for patients with other conditions may have suffered from “vertical” AIDS programs (i.e., programs focused exclusively on AIDS), especially because of their recruitment of scarce health care workers, there is also evidence that the AIDS response has had multiple collateral benefits, including a major increase in attention to and funding for global health issues, particularly malaria and tuberculosis, and a strengthening of services for maternal and child health in some countries. The unified and integrated response to AIDS, although far from perfect, can serve as a model for society’s future response to the growing epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, and injuries, along with maternal and child health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)