Authors

J.C. Sylvan

Class Year

2008

Document Type

Feature

Publication Date

Fall 2005

Abstract

In the countries hardest hit by the epidemic, the problem is compounded by the reality that many national health care systems, which will bear the burden of improving available treatments, are themselves in crisis. In years past, many developing countries, encouraged by international financial institutions and trusting in privatization, cut their health care budgets. As a result, health care has been chronically under-funded in many of these countries. According to a recent report by the UN Millennium Project, “[p]overty, misplaced priorities, and years of externally imposed restrictions on social spending have left health services for over two billion people dysfunctional, inaccessible, or priced beyond the reach of the poor.” Thus, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS in the developing world will depend to a great extent on success in overhauling health care systems in the world's poorest countries.

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