In today’s developing world, the spread of disease has become an important factor in the overall stability of a country. In this regard, developing nations gave a greater battle with the spread of disease than those of developed nations. While developing nations may help with immediate crises, they do not help solve the root or underlying problem. Industrialized nations are not doing enough to facilitate access to important medications to combat AIDS/HIV and malaria in developing nations. AIDS stands for acquired immuno deficiency syndrome, and is the final stage of the HIV infection.
When diagnosed with AIDS, medical intervention and treatment are needed to prevent death. AIDS, like malaria is most prevalent in sub Saharan Africa and south East Asia (refer to appendix A). Malaria is caused by a parasite that is transmitted from person to person through the bite of an Anopheles mosquito. Malaria is considered the disease of poverty as poorer people may live closer to degraded land and conditions where mosquitoes thrive. Over the past 35 years, the incidence of malaria has increased 2-3 folds. In order to helps stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria, developed countries need to aid in terms of monetary investments, making access to medications more viable, and helping to increase awareness by education.
The amount of foreign aid, debt relief or reduction and the distribution in wealth are key factors in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The total amount of international development aid is currently more than 100 billion a year. In 2008, rich countries gave 119. 8 billion in foreign aid. Over the years 0. 2 and 0. 3% of GDP has gone to aid. This is considerably below the United Nations target of 0. 7% ( Spagnoli. F, (2011), “Statistics on International Development Aid”, retrieved from <http://filipspagnoli. wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on- Bonnelle, 2 poverty/statistics-on-international-development-aid/>).
As shown in appendixes B and C, many of the world’s richest countries are not shown among the countries that are top donors in foreign aid. Developed nations are capable of giving more money for foreign aid as in the case of the United States where foreign aid accounted for a measly one percent of their budget last year, as stated by President Barack Obama ( Tampa Bay Times, (2013), “Foreign Aid makes up 1 percent of our entire budget”, retrieved from < http://www. politifact. com/truth-ometer/statements/2011/apr/13/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-foreign-aid-makes-1-percent- us-b/ >).
In recent years funding for both HIV/AIDS and malaria have not been enough. In 2010, donor funding by government for HIV/AIDS dropped 10%. Resources available in 2010 were US$6. 9 billion, compared to US$7. 6 billion in 2009 (UNAIDS/The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation (2011, July). Current funding levels for malaria have peaked at US$ 1. 6 billion per year which only accounts for 25% of the funding needed to reach targets set by the Roll Back Malaria partnership (RBM) (Roll Back Malaria, (2011), “Roll Back Malaria Progress & Impact Series:
Malaria Funding and Resource Utilization: The First Decade of Roll Back Malaria”, retrieved from <http://www. rbm. who. int/ProgressImpactSeries/report1. html>). Reducing the debt of poorer nations is also an important factor in combating these diseases. The World Bank and IMF implemented the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) in 1996, to provide debt relief to impoverished nations (International Monetary Fund, (2013), retrieved from <http://www. imf. org/external/np/exr/facts/hipc. htm>).
This initiative was criticised for not proving debt relief to enough countries. Many countries may only achieve the debt relief byfollowing strict s tipulations, which are often difficult to meet. Appendix D shows further how wealth is distributed unevenly; the world’s richest people consume the most while the world’s Bonnelle, 3 poorest consume the least.
This paired with a lack of sufficient funding results in many developing nations being unable to combat these diseases. While new developments in medicine have allowed the world to fight HIV/AIDS and malaria more effectively, it is very difficult for developing nations to access these medications. The medications needed to treat these diseases are expensive, and most of those afflicted cannot afford it.
Pharmaceutical companies also make it difficult for countries to reproduce generic versions of the drugs. Their claim is based on the belief that countries making generic versions would be a “violation of company patents”. For example, in 1999 the United States threatened trade sanctions on South Africa for trying to produce a generic version of the AIDS drug. South Africa wanted to pass a law that would give local licenses for producing the AIDS medication. Subsequently, about forty pharmaceutical companies took South Africa to court in March 2001, and reluctantly had to drop their case due to public outrage (Shah.A, (2002), Pharmaceutical companies and AIDS”, retrieved from < http://www. globalissues. org/article/53/pharmaceutical- corporations-and-aids>).
The TRIPS (trade related aspects of intellectual property rights) agreement essentially gives pharmaceutical companies control over the place of production. This agreement made it so that countries cannot favour local products over imports. For those individuals that might be able to gain access to the medication needed to combat HIV/AIDS, it could be too expensive.
For example in Zambia the average cost for HIV treatment would be about US$278 per person, as stated by The Guardian newspaper of the UK (Boseley, S, (2012), retrieved from <http://www. guardian. co. uk/society/2012/jul/20/aids-breakthrough-treatment- costless>) ,which when you consider that most of Zambia’s population lives on less than US$1 per day, this is obviously not a viable solution. In order to understand how HIV/AIDS and malaria spreads, developed countries should aid in the education process of developing nations.
In 2005, UNAIDS and ten co-sponsors agreed upon 17 main areas of focus such as such as prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV and Bonnelle, 4 care and support for children affected by AIDS. The key is in increasing awareness, screening, education, knowledge and technical expertise.
In 2005 The Global Campaign, Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS, launched a campaign that focused on preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, providing paediatric treatment, preventing infection among adolescents and protecting and supporting children affected by AIDS (UNAIDS,(2012), Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, retrieved from <http://www.childinfo. org/hiv_aids. html>).
While these kind of programs are a good start, there are still about 34. 0 million people living with HIV as of 2011. In the case of malaria in the WHO’s 2012 report on this disease aims to halt malaria by the end 2015 ( World Health Organization, (2012), retrieved from <http:www. who. int/malaria/publications/world_malaria_report_2012/wmr2012_full_report. pdf>).
By aiding developing countries in terms of monetary investments (foreign aid and debt relief), making necessary medications more readily accessible, and increasing awareness in the form of education, developed nations can make the eradication of HIV/AIDS and malaria easier. By increasing foreign aid, which would not account for a large percent of the country’s wealth, or providing countries with debt relief, those countries could invest money into research.
For countries that cannot afford the life saving medications, allowing them to create generic versions of the drugs would allow more lives to be saved. Lastly, increasing education on awareness and prevention would aid in less transmission of these diseases. Healthcare resources and needs vary widely from country to country and cannot be addressed with a single approach. Countries need to work in partnership with governments, international and local organisations to provide sustainable healthcare for the people most affected by disease.