Study Examines AIDS Casualties

An estimated 330,000 people died as a result of the South African government’s lack of implementation of a “timely and feasible” antiretroviral treatment program between 2000 and 2005, according to a study by Harvard researchers published yesterday in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

The study, conducted by Pride Chigwedere, a graduate of the Harvard School of Public Health, and four other researchers from the school, also found that the infection of 35,000 newborns with HIV could have been prevented with widespread use of ARV drugs.

In total, the number of “person-years”—the number of years that people would have lived with ARV treatments—lost by the South African government is estimated at 3.8 million.

ARV drugs are accepted therapy for HIV/AIDS in the global scientific community.

“When antiretroviral drugs are given in combination, HIV replication and immune deterioration can be delayed, and survival and quality of life improved,” according to the World Health Organization.

But the government of former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela in 1999, argued that ARV drugs were dangerous and ineffective. Mbeki’s organization restricted foreign donations to ARV efforts and instead emphasized folk remedies such as lemon juice and garlic.

The Harvard study called the government a “major obstacle” in providing patients with ARV drugs, adding that high cost and lack of availability of the drugs are not sufficient explanations for why the government did not implement an ARV treatment program.

Chigwidere, who spoke at the Museum of Science last night in honor of World AIDS Day, said yesterday that he chose to study South Africa because it is one of the countries that has been “most affected” by the AIDS epidemic, as one in five adults in South Africa is infected with HIV. He added that as a native of Zimbabwe, he wanted to study a region that was “close to home”.

Although Chigwidere was expecting the study to reveal a large number of lives lost, he said he was still surprised by the results.

“When we did the study and the number totaled more than 300,000, it was very shocking,” he said.

Despite the grim numbers, another one of the study’s authors said he had higher hopes for future South African governments, especially since Mbeki resigned in September 2008 due to pressure from his party, the African National Congress.

“I have no doubt that they’ll do much better than they did under the last government,” said Max Essex, an author of the study and the chair of the School of Public Health’s AIDS initiative.

Essex added that he hopes the study will influence public health in nations like South Africa.