Larvatus Prodeo

As far as I understand it, Thabo Mbeki’s exit from office was not directly attributable to his reprehensible policies on AIDS. But, on their own, they are sufficient grounds to disgrace his legacy. The New York Times reports on an epidemiological study by researchers at Harvard University’s School of Public Health of the human cost of those policies.

From the study’s abstract:

Using modeling, we compared the number of persons who received ARVs for treatment and prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission between 2000 and 2005 with an alternative of what was reasonably feasible in the country during that period. More than 330,000 lives or approximately 2.2 million person-years were lost because a feasible and timely ARV treatment program was not implemented in South Africa. Thirty-five thousand babies were born with HIV, resulting in 1.6 million person-years lost by not implementing a mother-to-child transmission prophylaxis program using nevirapine. The total lost benefits of ARVs are at least 3.8 million person-years for the period 2000–2005.

Continue reading ‘Mbeki’s AIDS legacy – 330,000 premature deaths, 35,000 HIV-infected babies’