HIV/AIDS, the latest, contemporary disease that is afflicting and devastating millions, about thirty-five million of the world’s population, a little less than one percent, of which seventy percent inhabits the continent of Africa, where a great many developing countries are found. HIV, a sexually transmitted disease that discards the infector’s immune system, many of which die less than a year, may be acquired through several paths: blood, semen, breast milk, vaginal fluids, and rectal mucous (Aids.gov). 2001 witnessed a devastating, unparalleled commotion of occurrences that ultimately generated the epidemic, as opposed to a mere couple thousand in the 1960s, which created an passionate, vigilant awareness by the international public and fabricated an amazing phenomenon that established a common ground between nations, rich and poor alike, in the care and treatment of those living with HIV/AIDS.
Characterized by the major court case in opposition to the South African government, the drug companies "yearn to be seen assisting against the fight the ever growing global AIDS crisis. However, the companies remain unwavering in their defense of patents…even if it means suing poor nations that want to make or buy bootleg generics because they can't afford brand-name drugs." The episode not only represents morally incorrect, but a major economic, political, and social challenge. Drug companies, logically, will not help those in poverty due to the substantial loss they would sacrifice, so only the rich can afford the medicine. The unreasonably high prices dictated by these pharmaceutical companies, at least for the patented drugs, are a considerable amount higher than their marginal cost, the overall cost of constructing the drug. For ...
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Works Cited
KENNEDY, R. E. The Pharmaceutical Industry and the AIDS Crisis in Developing Countries, Harvard Business School, August 2001. [Case Study]
AGENCE NATIONAL DE RECHERCHES SUR LA SIDA (ANRS): Economics of AIDS and Access to HIV/ AIDS Care in Developing Countries, Issues and Challenges Part One: Patents, Generic Drugs and the Market for Antiretrovirals, June 2003. [Available from http://www.iaen.org/papers/anrs.php, accessed in Jul 2006]
INTERNATIONAL AIDS-ECONOMICS NETWORK (IAEN): State of the Art: AIDS and Economics, July 2002. [Available from http://pdf.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNACP969.pdf, accessed in Jul 2006]
KREMER, M. Creating Markets for New Vaccines Part 1: Rationale, April 2001. [Available from http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7716.pdf, accessed in Jul 2006]
PNG, Ivan. Managerial Economics, 2nd ed., Blackwell Publishing, 2002.
The multinational pharmaceutical firm, Wellcome PLC, brought a product to the market to help treat the symptoms of AIDS and HIV. Wellcome PLC owns an American subsidiary known as the Burroughs Wellcome Company. In 1987, Burroughs Wellcome Company received FDA approval to sale Retrovir, which interferes with the ability of HIV infected cells to produce new virus. Burroughs Wellcome Company finds itself under siege in September 1989 by AIDS activists and various segments of the U.S. government. Despite two reductions in price in the last two years, Burroughs Wellcome Company’s executive management is under unrelenting pressure to decrease the price of Retrovir so that many more people can afford the prescription.
AIDS is slowly becoming the number one killer across the globe. Throughout numerous small countries, AIDS has destroyed lives, taken away mothers, and has left hopeless children as orphans. The problem remains that funding for the diseases’ medical research is limited to none. In the country Brazil, HIV/AIDS has been compared to the bubonic plague, one of the oldest yet, most deadly diseases to spread rapidly across Europe (Fiedler 524). Due to this issue, Brazil’s government has promised that everyone who has been diagnosed with either HIV or AIDS will receive free treatment; however, this treatment does not include help in purchasing HIV medications, that “carry astronomical price tags” (Fiedler 525). Generic drug companies have been able to produce effective HIV medications that are not as costly if compared to the prices given by the huge pharmaceutical companies. In contrast, the U.S. government has now intervened with these generic companies hindering them from making HIV medications, which may not be as efficient if made by the pharmaceutical companies. Not only are these drug companies losing thousands of dollars against generic drug companies, but also tremendous profit that is demanded for marketing these expensive drugs as well. “How many people must die without treatment until the companies are willing to lower their prices, or to surrender their patients so generic makers can enter market? (Fiedler 525).” With this question in mind, what ways can we eliminate the HIV/AIDS epidemic across the world? With research, education, testing, and funding we can prevent the spread of HIV to others and hopefully find a cure.
The spread of aids threatens our population daily. Lives lost to it number over 12 million, including 2 mil...
Ramiah, I., & Reich, M. R. (2005). Public-Private Partnerships and Antiretroviral Drugs for HIV/AIDS: Lessons From Botswana. Health Affairs, 24(2), 545-551. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.24.2.545
Spink, Gemma. "AIDS." AVERTing HIV and AIDS. 23 Dec 2009. Web. 11 Jan 2010. .
Although the sub-Saharan region accounts for just 10% of the world’s population, 67% (22.5 million) of the 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS in 1998 were residents of one of the 34 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and of all AIDS deaths since the epidemic started, 83% have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (Gilks, 1999, p. 180). Among children under age 15 living with HIV/AIDS, 90% live in sub-Saharan Africa as do 95% of all AIDS orphans. In several of the 34 sub-Saharan nations, 1 out of every 4 adults is HIV-positive (UNAIDS, 1998, p. 1). Taxing low-income countries with health care systems inadequate to handle the burden of non-AIDS related illnesses, AIDS has devastated many of the sub-Saharan African economies. The impact of AIDS on the region is such that it is now affecting demographics - changing mortality and fertility rates, reducing lifespan, and ultimately affecting population growth.
T.J. Philipson and A.B. Jena, “Who Benefits from New Medical Technologies? Estimates of Consumer and Producer Surpluses for HIV/AIDS Drugs,” Forum for Health Economics and Policy 9, no. 2 (2006).
According to WHO in 2007, “more than 95% of HIV cases are in developing countries, with two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa. “ In addition, there were 2.1 million deaths related to HIV and 2.5 million...
This article provides an excellent analysis about the product RED and its ability to harness private interest and consumer power to address the AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria crisis. The article emphasizes that the product red may not solve the Aids crisis or change the state of health for Africa but it offers a pragmatic solution to dealing with one of the major health issues by tapping
Statistics have been show a frightening increase in AIDS/HIV cases. As of the year 2012, South Africa has had the most cases of HIV/AIDS coming to a total of 6,070,800 ("Country Comparison :: HIV/AIDS”). This is a huge contributing factor to this conspira...
“The 16th International Conference on AIDS: Will It Leave a Legacy?” National Library of Medicine. 19 Sept. 2014. Web. 25 Mar. 2015. . The AIDS 2014 conference co-chairs reflect on the challenges and successes of the conference, highlighting sessions on microbicides and preventive vaccines, key concepts and progress regarding the design and conduct of clinical trials, and sessions on pre-exposure prophylaxis. The authors note that HIV transmission might be counterproductive because it overstates the risks, creates a false sense that HIV is someone else’s problem, provides further incentive for people to avoid learning their HIV status, and discourages HIV-positive people from accessing HIV-prevention resources. Although scientists try to come up with new solutions and treatments for AIDS, it is still a major problem in many parts of the world. Likewise, AIDS corresponds to disease associated with poverty, such as malaria, cholera, and tuberculosis because both diseases still persist, especially in North America and Europe. Rampant urbanization and overcrowding in the 1700s and 1800s caused massive outbreaks of cholera and tuberculosis. Although science played a significant role in the nineteenth century’s medical breakthroughs, living conditions, including overcrowding, air pollution, and unprotected water supplies, worsen the severity of cholera and tuberculosis. The modern age brought a better understanding of diseases, but it also gave rise to much greater global mobility, speeding up the widespread outbreak of epidemics and pandemics. Even today, AIDS and diseases such as tuberculosis and cholera spread easily through faster transportation, industrialization, and rapid
The World Bank (1997) stated that “widespread poverty and unequal income distribution of income that typify underdevelopment, the lack of choices and the inability to determine one’s own destiny fuel the HIV epidemic.” Contestably studies from African countries which delve deeper in to the root causes and impacts of the correlation between HIV/AIDS and poverty through analysing statistical epidemiological and socioeconomic data suggest that there is a notable correlation between the spreading of HIV/AIDS and wealth / more prosperous states within Africa.
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, commonly known as HIV/AIDS is a disease, with which the human immune system, unlike in other disease, cannot cope. AIDS, which is caused by the HIV virus, causes severe disorder of the immune system and slowly progresses through stages which disable the body’s capability to protect and instead makes it vulnerable for other infections. The first blood sample to contain HIV was drawn in 1959 in Zaire, Africa while molecular genetics have suggested that the epidemic first began in the 1930s (Smallman & Brown, 2011). Currently, according to the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS, 35.3 million people worldwide are living with HIV. In 2012, an estimated 2.3 million people became newly infected with the virus and 1.6 million people lost their lives to AIDS (Fact Sheet, UNAIDS). It is due to the globalized international society that a disease which existed in one part of the world has managed to infect so many around the world. Globalization is narrowly defined by Joseph Stiglitz as "the removal of barriers to free trade and the closer integration of national economies" (Stiglitz, 2003). Globalization has its effects in different aspects such as economy, politics, culture, across different parts of the world. Like other aspects, globalization affects the health sector as well. In a society, one finds different things that connect us globally. As Barnett and Whiteside point out (2000), “health and wellbeing are international concerns and global goods, and inherent in the epidemic are lessons to be learned regarding collective responsibility for universal human health” (Barnett & Whiteside, 2000). Therefore, through all these global connections in the international society, t...
There is more than enough data that shows the extent to which AIDS cripples millions of individuals and households around the globe. Also, there are verified methods we can take to address this pandemic. We, as citizens of the world, need to recognize the severity of this problem and take action. Those in power must better distribute resources so that more is spent on saving the families and lives of AIDS stricken patients.
The emergence of HIV/AIDS is viewed globally as one of the most serious health and developmental challenges our society faces today. Being a lentivirus, HIV slowly replicates over time, attacking and wearing down the human immune system subsequently leading to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) at which point the affected individual is exposed to life threatening illnesses and eventual death. Despite the fact that a few instances of this disease have been accounted for in all parts of the world, a high rate of the aforementioned living with HIV are situated in either low or medium wage procuring nations. The Sub-Saharan region Africa is recognized as the geographic region most afflicted by the pandemic. In previous years, people living with HIV or at risk of getting infected did not have enough access to prevention, care and treatment neither were they properly sensitized about the disease. These days, awareness and accessibility to all the mentioned (preventive methods, care etc.) has risen dramatically due to several global responses to the epidemic. An estimated half of newly infected people are among those under age 25(The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic). It hits hard as it has no visible symptoms and can go a long time without being diagnosed until one is tested or before it is too late to manage.