Kakaire A. Kirunda
5 August 2008
The 17th International Aids Conference (AIDS 2008) opened on Sunday with a rejection that a lot of funds were being spent on HIV/Aids at the expense of health systems in resource limited countries.
This was echoed by the outgoing International Aids Society President Dr Pedro Cahn saying despite the progress in saving lives and healing the sick in the poorest nations of the world, critics claim that HIV funding is creating more problems than it solves.
"But we, who have worked so hard on HIV for so long, know what the critics seem to have forgotten. We know that health systems were weak and under-funded long before the HIV epidemic emerged," said Dr Cahn.
What is required at a time when the world is faced with serious infections such as HIV and tuberculosis, he argued, is collaboration but not competition amongst public health programmes.
Health systems are facing major challenges that have hampered the provision of health services for decades. But in recent years they have received renewed attention, as large sums of Aids money flows into the countries from global donors.
As one of the major topics at the conference, experts including Uganda's Dr Freddie Ssengooba will on Thursday debate whether Aids money is strengthening national health systems or weakening them by establishing heavily resourced systems focused on combating a single disease.
And according to the World Health Organisation Director General, Dr Margaret Chan, the response to HIV/Aids, especially the massive roll out of treatment has put into sharp focus the consequences of failure to invest in basic infrastructures.
Meanwhile, Uganda's Dr Elly Katabira who has been Africa's representative on the IAS Executive will assume ISA presidency at the end of the conference.
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