Low HIV and Aids rates saw west Africa ‘miss out on health investment'

THE GUARDIAN                                                                                Oct. 28, 2014
By Sarah Boseley

West Africa, now in the throes of a calamitous Ebola epidemic, missed out on significant health investment over the past decade or more because it had low rates of HIV, a detailed survey of the changing health of Africa and Asia reveals.

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power (centre), visits an ebola emergency response centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Healthcare in west Africa now has the world’s attention. Photograph: Reuters

A major project called Indepth, which has looked at the causes of death of more than 110,000 people in 13 countries shows that health improved generally in those given substantial international aid to try to turn around the HIV and Aids epidemic. But west Africa, with severe poverty and low healthcare standards but relatively little HIV, did not benefit.

“In most parts of Africa, health systems have been strengthened by the external funding of HIV,” said Dr Jimmy Whitworth, head of population health at the Wellcome Trust which funded the project. Pepfar (the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) and other agencies invested in health clinics and staff in order to make it possible for thousands of Africans in Aids and HIV-hit countries such as Kenya to be tested and given antiretroviral drugs to keep them alive and well....

But no such improvement occurred in Sierra Leone, Liberia or Guinea.
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http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/oct/29/hiv-aids-west-africa-health-investment-ebola?utm_source=October+29+2014+EN&utm_campaign=10%2F29%2F2014&utm_medium=email