Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2009. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - April 7, 2009
Donald G. Mcneil Jr.
The assessment of the plan, by two Stanford University School of Medicine professors, was published online Monday in The Annals of Internal Medicine.
"It has averted deaths -- a lot of deaths," said Dr. Eran Bendavid, one of the authors. "However, we could not see a change in prevalence rates."
The report said the full impact of the program, known as Pepfar, "may not be felt for years."
Unlike the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is open to all countries, the Bush administration plan was originally directed at only 15 countries, 12 of them in Africa. Using data from Unaids, the United Nations AIDS-fighting agency, the authors compared cases and deaths in those 12 countries against similar data for 29 African countries with more than 1 percent of adults infected but not getting Pepfar help.
Before 2003, the year Pepfar was organized, they found a slightly lower annual increase in AIDS deaths in the 12 Pepfar countries. By 2007, they found it was 10.5 percent lower. But AIDS infections climbed in all countries studied.
Nearly half of Pepfar's money is spent on antiretroviral treatment.
Last year, Congress reauthorized Pepfar as part of a $48 billion package, but money must be budgeted each year.
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