Haiti: AIDS Treatment and Prevention of HIV Go Together, Expert
Says November 18, 2002 One of the world's leading advocates for
providing AIDS drugs to the poorest people on the planet spoke
at the University of Washington Thursday, challenging those who
contend it is unworkable and unwise to use complex HIV drug
regimens under Third World conditions. Dr. Paul Farmer, a
medical anthropologist and Harvard physician who runs an AIDS
clinic in Haiti, said his experience proves it is both workable
and necessary. In fact, he said, "It is unwise to attempt
prevention without treatment." Farmer was one of the speakers at
a day-long symposium on HIV/AIDS organized by UW's Center for
AIDS Research. At the Clinique Bon Sauveur in Cange, Haiti,
Farmer and his staff provide antiviral medications for about 300
HIV-infected people. Using the same therapeutic approach for as
tuberculosis, or directly observed treatment short-course, they
report having brought many Haitians back from their deathbeds.
When they first opened t