Posted 23 May 2010, 04:13 P, by Julio Montaner, IAS President
On Thursday night I appeared on Canada’s popular news show The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos. In addition to talking about Vancouver’s safe injecting site and our efforts to keep it open, I used the opportunity to once again urge our Prime Minister to make AIDS a priority at the upcoming G8 summit.
As I noted on the show, “I cannot comprehend how anyone can talk about maternal and child health in Africa and ignore the fact that 30% of the women in that age group are actually HIV infected. How can you pretend that you are going to look after their health and the health of the children when you are not bringing them treatment?...My concern is this is all about politics and not about honest delivery of programmes.”
Speaking with George about the need for the G8 to commit more resources to treatment scale up, I noted, “The cost effectiveness of this treatment is incredible. They are in fact not just cost effective, they are cost averting. They are saving us money. We’re not doing it because we don’t care. We don’t care to follow up on our promises.”
Click here to view the interview.