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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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 Mead Over is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development researching economics of efficient, effective, and cost-effective health interventions in developing countries. Full BioShowing posts on the Global Health Policy blog. View author posts on: Comments from Laurie Garrett on the AIDS TransitionNovember 23, 2011By Mead Over in HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases Tags: HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases
Last week’s launch event for my book proved to be an entertaining and thought-provoking discussion on achieving an AIDS transition – the idea that ending the AIDS pandemic will require reducing the number of new infections below the number of AIDS deaths so that the total number of people with HIV/AIDS declines (for more details read the brief, listen to the wonkcast, or buy the book). In my book I assert that achieving an AIDS transition will require meeting our commitments to currently enrolled patients, enrolling enough new patients to prevent a resurgence in AIDS mortality, and pushing new infections below the number of deaths (which could be accomplished with either behavioral or medical prevention interventions). One of several ways to do this is to use a cash-on-delivery (COD) incentive to reward the recipient government – be it national or provincial – for every HIV infection averted (more on this idea here). 2 Comments »Secretary Clinton: How Will We “Transition” to an AIDS-Free Generation?November 9, 2011By Mead Over in Global Health Architecture and Governance, HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases Tags: HIV/AIDS
Yesterday, Secretary Clinton made an eloquent and morale boosting speech in support of the United States’ continued leadership in the global effort towards an “AIDS-free generation.” Her remarks demonstrated a clear focus on prevention as the way forward, highlighting recent advances in prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT), male circumcision (see here, here and here), the prevention effects of antiretroviral therapy for AIDS (ART), and the need to employ a “combination” approach for effective HIV prevention. And then she proudly touted the US administrations investment of more than $100 million in research to formally test the hypothesis around whether combination prevention works. 1 Comment »Priorities for AIDS Spending: Evaluating Interventions Individually Obscures the Benefits of SynergySeptember 30, 2011By Mead Over in HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases Tags: HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases
Last Friday I asked “How would you spend an additional $10 billion on AIDS in Africa over the next five years?” On Wednesday I learned how a panel of five distinguished senior economists who had never before worked on the AIDS epidemic would do so. Here’s how they decided to spend the hypothetical additional $10 billion dollars. Read More… 8 Comments »How Would You Spend an Additional $10 Billion on AIDS in Africa Over the Next Five Years?September 23, 2011By Mead Over in HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases Tags: HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases
This is the question which the Rush Foundation has asked the Copenhagen Consensus Centre to address by deploying their buzz-producing approach of: (1) commissioning “Assessment Papers” on competing ways to spend a hypothetical additional $10 billion on HIV/AIDS in Africa over five years; (2) commissioning “Perspective Papers” by discussants who critique the Assessment Papers and suggest alternatives; (3) commissioning a “Nobel Laureate Expert Panel” to judge the competitors and rank the alternatives from most to least advantageous for the developing world populations they are intended to help. Read More… 4 Comments »Still No Reason to Stall Male Circumcision, Forget the HIV Vaccine, or Throw Away Your CondomsMay 17, 2011By Mead Over in HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases, Uncategorized Tags: AIDS Transition, ART, HIV/AIDS, Male Circumcision, UNAIDS
What if by taking a pill every day, all 33 million HIV-infected people in the world could not only fend off the deterioration of their own health, but also reduce their chances of infecting uninfected sex partners by 96 %? This is the prospect that is offered by newly announced results of the HPTN 052 trial. (See the Kaiser Foundation report here, the UNAIDS announcement here, the Global health Sushi report here and the trial registry info here. ) The trial has been cut short because only one among 877 HIV-infected people on anti-retroviral therapy (ART) infected his or her partner, while 27 among the 886 HIV-infected people did so. In view of the disadvantage apparently suffered by those taking the placebo instead of the real ART drugs, the researchers and their oversight board considered it unethical to continue to withhold the drugs from the couples in the control arm. Read More… 28 Comments »The Ethics of Material Incentives for HIV PreventionFebruary 11, 2011By Mead Over in HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases, Uncategorized Tags: HIV/AIDS, Prevention
I am one of four panelists who will debate on Monday morning whether it is ethical for a government to offer material incentives in order to prevent HIV infections. UPDATE 2/17/2011: The videocast has now been posted. To view it, click here, scroll to “DEBATE 5” and click on the phrase “Click here for videocast“. A theme of my work since an early paper with Peter Piot has been the public economic rationale for government to shoulder the responsibility for HIV prevention. Read More… 7 Comments »Haitian Death Toll Reveals Vulnerability of Poor Countries to Natural DisastersFebruary 4, 2011By Mead Over in Global Health Tags: Haiti
This is a joint post with Owen McCarthy. In February 2010, we wrote about how the relative magnitude of the death toll from the Haiti earthquake, then reckoned at approximately 230,000, compared to other recent natural disasters. On the one year anniversary of the earthquake, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive announced that a year’s worth of recovery efforts had provided a revised death toll of 316,000, representing nearly 3.5% of Haiti’s total population (a comparable disaster in the United States would kill 10.5 million people). Death tolls from such extensive natural disasters are subject to uncertainty, but it appears the last event that definitively exceeds the toll from the Haiti earthquake was Cyclone Bhola, which struck East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1970, killing as many as 500,000. Considering these numbers, the 2010 Haiti earthquake was the most deadly natural disaster of the last forty years. Read More… Comment » |
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