The Copenhagen Consensus Center and the Rush Foundation sponsored a panel of experts, who presented their findings Yesterday (Wednesday) in Washington to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Top world experts put their heads together to take a new look at the HIV / AIDS problem to see if there are better ways to allocate funds. The “RethinkHIV” project includes three Nobel Laureates.

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center clarified :

“It’s essentially a project to try to say, let’s spend money on HIV in the smartest possible way…..What we’re trying to say with some of the world’s top researchers ….. where can you get the most bang for your extra buck doing something about HIV in sub-Saharan Africa?”

With the global recession and local economic issues facing many countries around the world the advice comes at an opportune moment. Even the USA who funds much of the aid is feeling the pinch.

AIDS / HIV is some 30 years old now, and there have been many advances in antiretroviral drugs. There have also been many encouraging papers released that show the path to a vaccine is progressing, although scientists agree it is still some years away.

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg continues :

“We don’t actually have very good evidence for many of the things we’ve done in the past as to how much it costs compared to how many lives we save. And so what we tried to do was to get some of the world’s top economists in HIV, 31 of them in all, to look at what are the best policies. That is, where can you do the most good on HIV per dollar spent? And it’s in the rethink of the economics smartness, if you will, that we really have an edge here.”

In short the panel came to the conclusion that funds be focused on vaccine research which will eventually put an end to the spread of the virus. This is clearly the most important goal. Others included male circumcision and a push to prevent mother to child transmission.

Dr. Lomborg confirms that vaccines are really the best way to solve the issue and funding should be focused on this area. Current research spends around $900 Million and Dr. Lomborg clarifies the point that understanding the disease medically whilst important, is not the same thing as having a viable vaccine that ceases the spread of it.

He concludes:

“If we spend just a hundred million dollars more per year we could improve the time when it arrives by perhaps as much as two years. That would simply mean we could help eradicate or dramatically reduce the infection in just a couple of decades ….. what we add to the conversation is an economic viewpoint because it’s not enough to be able to treat and to heal or to avoid infections. You also need to look at what are the costs and benefits because some of the things we do are very costly and only do a little good, whereas other things are very cheap and do an amazing amount of good …..

Rupert Shepherd reporting for Medical News Today.com