AIDS and Tennis Elite in Toronto

I guess Toronto was the place to be this past weekend. The Rogers Cup Masters Tennis Tournament was held there, and the XVI International AIDS Conference starts tomorrow. Roger Federer won his 40th career title and his 11th Masters shield trophy by defeating Richard Gasquet 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Also in Toronto on Sunday, Bill Gates addressed the biennial AIDS conference by schooling them in the "harsh mathematics" of the global AIDS epidemic:

Between 2003 and 2005, with the infusion of funds from Pepfar and the Global Fund, the number of people in low and middle income countries receiving anti-retroviral drugs increased by an average of 450,000 each year. Yet over the same period, the number of people who became infected with HIV averaged 4.6 million a year. In other words, for each new person who got treatment for HIV, more than 10 people became infected. Even during our greatest advance, we are falling behind.
Let’s consider what this means for universal treatment. Right now, nearly 40 million people are living with HIV. The lowest price for first-line treatment drugs is about $130 per person per year; in many cases the cost is much higher. And the cost of personnel, lab work, and other expenses easily exceeds another $200 per person per year.

That means — even when you assume the lowest possible prices — that the annual cost of getting treatment to everyone in the world who is HIV positive would be more than $13 billion a year, every year. To put that number in context, remember that Pepfar — an historic expansion in funding — designates about $1.5 billion a year for treatment.

This $13 billon figure doesn’t count the cost of much more expensive second-line therapies, which many patients will need. Moreover, these figures assume no increase in the number of people living with HIV — yet we’re averaging 4.6 million new infections a year.

[...]

The harsh mathematics of this epidemic proves that prevention is essential to expanding treatment. Treatment without prevention is simply unsustainable.

We have to do a much better job on prevention.

Bill Gates gets it! In another part of his speech he makes it clear that a key component of defeating the AIDS pandemic is empowering women and giving them options where their continued health does not depend on the decisions made by the men they have sex with (to wear or not wear a condom, to be circumcised or not, to be tested for HIV or not). "We need to put the power to prevent HIV in the hands of women." Amen, brother!

UPDATE: Terrance over at Republic of T points out that there are number of bloggers covering the AIDS conference among the 24, 000 attendees at a group blog called Time To Deliver.