Three-fold increase on AIDS spending urged

Global spending on HIV/AIDS prevention programmes would have to increase three-fold to US $5.7 billion by 2005 to help reverse the global epidemic, a new report has found. Coming ahead of a national AIDS conference in South Africa, the International HIV/AIDS Working Group's report also urges donor governments to increase spending on prevention to 0.02 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Extrapolating from UNAIDS estimates for sub-Saharan Africa, the group said total spending for 2002 on prevention services in the region had amounted to $927 million. It is estimated that some 29 million people south of the Sahara, including three million children under the age of 15, are currently living with HIV/AIDS. The report estimates that a figure of $1.5 billion annually would be needed by 2005, and $1.65 billion by 2007 for prevention programmes to be brought to scale.