AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Wed, 11 Jul 2001

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Wed, 11 Jul 2001
-----------------------------------------------

*Senate Approves Supplemental Spending Bill That Includes $100 
  Million for Global AIDS Fund 
*Double Graves May Be Needed to Accommodate AIDS Deaths in Zimbabwe 
* Harvard Professor Analyzes HIV/AIDS Plan Put Forth By U2's Bono

Politics & Policy

Senate Approves Supplemental Spending Bill That Includes $100 Million 
for Global AIDS Fund

The Senate yesterday approved a $6.5 billion supplemental spending 
bill to cover military budget shortfalls and other government pro-
grams, including a $100 million appropriation to the U.N. Global AIDS 
and Health Fund, the Washington Post reports. The bill, approved 98-
1, closely resembles President Bush's spending requests in this area 
(Washington Post, 7/11).

---

GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Double Graves May Be Needed to Accommodate AIDS Deaths in Zimbabwe

The city council of Harare, Zimbabwe, is promoting the idea of double 
burials -- burying one person on top of another -- in an effort to 
save space in graveyards that are quickly filling with people who 
have died of AIDS-related illnesses, Reuters Health reports. But Zim-
babwe's black majority is opposed to double burials, and many fami-
lies are refusing the council's current preferred practice of digging 
deeper graves to later accommodate a second body, calling it "not re-
spectful of the dead". Harare city curator of graves Eladinos Zimbwa 
told the Sunday Mail that double burials are necessary as space for 
individual graves is limited, but said, "Because of black people's 
cultural beliefs, it has been very difficult to convince them that is 
a better way of saving space." The Zimbabwe government estimates that 
at least 2,000 people die of AIDS-related illnesses every week 
(Reuters Health, 7/9). 

---

Opinion   Harvard Professor Analyzes HIV/AIDS Plan Put Forth By U2's 
Bono

Harvard Economics Professor Robert Barro relates his discussion about 
HIV/AIDS initiatives with rock star Bono in a column in this week's 
Business Week. Barro, who is also a senior fellow at the Hoover In-
stitution, writes that after campaigning for debt relief, Bono has 
turned his efforts to "alleviating the AIDS epidemic in Africa" 
through an initiative combining expanded international trade with an 
increase in medical assistance from wealthy nations to developing 
countries. Barro states that he has "concerns about the efficacy" of 
Bono's plan. He writes that although pharmaceutical companies might 
"yield to international pressures" to cut the cost of AIDS drugs for 
poorer nations, they might be reluctant to finance research for an 
AIDS vaccine or cure, either or both of which are "likely to emerge 
from the efforts of profit-seeking corporations." In addition, Barro 
notes that the cost of delivering AIDS medicines to people in devel-
oping nations would still be "very high," even if the drugs were 
cheap. Barro states that even though AIDS drugs can extend the lives 
of HIV-positive people, the "resulting in- crease in life spans could 
... actually expand the epidemic," as people taking the drugs would 
have a longer period of time in which to spread the virus to others. 
He suggests that efforts to fight diseases be directed at initiatives 
aimed at cutting measles and malaria, two diseases  "for which the 
dollar cost of saving a life is much lower." Barro writes that inter-
national trade is a "good idea" and that "combining economic ortho-
doxy with the expansion of medical aid" is "politically astute".
However, he concludes, "I wish I could believe that debt relief and 
assistance for AIDS would encourage economic development and save 
lives in Africa. But my understanding of economics and my research on 
economic growth keep me from believing these things" (Barro, Business 
Week, 7/16). 

---

The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, 
a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National 
Journal Group Inc. c 2001 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser 
Family Foundation. All rights reserved 
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Tel: +1-202-672-5952 
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