Why HIV prevention should take priority over care?
Prevention is almost always cheaper than care irrespective of a country’s development status, and particularly when therapeutic options are still dominated by first-generation drugs under patent. Prevention also has proven effective as a vital foundation for any national AIDS programme. Prevention and treatment serve overlapping but not identical goals. No nation’s health policy strictly enforces tradeoffs between prevention and care. Many millions are HIV infected and treatment is life-saving. This is reason enough to provide treatment without hesitation. When highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) prices exceeded US$ 10,000 per patient-year and global resources for the epidemic remained paltry, treatment was flatly unaffordable. As prices fall and global funding increases, finances are rapidly ceasing to be the binding constraint. Low implementation capacity will soon be the limiting factor in many countries. There is no question that prevention efforts need to be scaled up dra
