The Idea Department

Bjorn Lomborg has written two articles on Project Syndicate, on the importance of, not fighting HIV/Aids exactly,  but rethinking our approach to prevention and treatment.
 
In both pieces, Lomborg underlines the lack of ‘high-quality evaluation’, post Aids research funding and questions the effectiveness of campaigns such as the ‘abstinence’ campaign which has failed to prove useful. And in an absence of any light being shed on any success made in the field, how is it to be replicated?

Lomborg focuses on the RethinkHIV project, which aims to  analyze the ‘promising responses’ to the issue in it’s most prevalent area: Sub-Saharan Africa. The resulting data focused on ‘cost-benefit analysis of AIDS priorities’. This is what Lomborg shed light on in his earlier article, Rethinking the Fight against HIV.

Calling on 5 economists to put heads together and think up economically sound solutions to battling Aids in a cost effective way, such solutions have been brought to the fore as, including investing in reducing mother to infant transmission of Aids as well as blood transfusion transmission.

Through this research, a knock-on effect was initiated, and other areas became highlighted, continuing the contagion of research: ‘Gender inequalities and domestic violence’ have been associated with increased HIV risk. A fusion of ‘income-boosting microfinance and agricultural-support programs’ in conjunction with gender training programs are the suggested antidote.
Lomborg’s most recent article on Project Syndicate here.