Abstract

PIP: In this paper, Charles Todd comments that the report of Evan Wood and colleagues illustrates the dangers of taking a narrow medical view of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. It runs the risk of reversing the growing realization that the HIV/AIDS epidemic in southern Africa is a broad, social, cultural, political, and economic issue rather than a purely medical one. Todd raises the point that Wood and colleagues did not model the costs associated with the voluntary testing and counseling that should accompany a prophylaxis program. To this effect, a more helpful approach on meeting basic health needs and eradicating poverty would be to compare the impact of such levels of expenditure. It is also emphasized that the title of the paper of Wood and colleagues is misleading, implying that the focus of the modeling was sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, when it was in fact South Africa alone. Accordingly, the gross domestic product of South Africa per person is higher than that of nearly all other sub-Saharan African countries, and health expenditure is 10-20 times greater.