Research conducted by the UCT Centre for Actuarial Research (CARE) demonstrates that a comprehensive treatment and prevention plan that incorporates antiretroviral therapy will prevent millions of AIDS deaths and new HIV infections. By implementing voluntary counselling and testing, mother-to-child transmission prevention, improved management of sexually transmitted infections and highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), nearly 3 million AIDS deaths can be averted and over 2.5 million HIV infections can be prevented by 2015. Furthermore a treatment programme that includes HAART can prevent approximately a million double-orphans (children under the age of 18 both of whose parents have died). The TAC has used the results of the CARE research to estimate costs of implementing these programmes. The cost of HAART for adults gradually increases from R224 million in 2002 to R6.8 billion in 2007 to a peak of R18.1 billion in 2015. These amounts include personnel and monitoring costs and assume that generic medicines that have been proven equivalent to patented brand-name drugs are available for use. With a realistic price reduction in antiretroviral medicines to R300 per month for a first-line regimen and R450 per month for a second-line regimen, the cost of Adult HAART can be reduced to R14.1 billion in 2015. Adult HAART is the most expensive of the health interventions that CARE has modelled but has the most significant effect on life-expectancy and AIDS deaths. Central to our work is the right to life and dignity of all people. But, a clear human rights approach is not the only gain for society. Treatment will not only save lives, it will reduce hospitalisation costs to the public health sector and the cost of orphan grants and caring for orphans. Furthermore, through treatment we can avoid: the collapse of the public health system; loss of human capital (e.g. teachers, nurses, students); and immense social dysfunction. In addition, the economy will benefit from investment in health-care, stability in productivity and retention of skills. While modelling the future is not an exact science, this is the most comprehensively researched work of this kind that has yet been done with regard to the South African HIV epidemic. It is therefore the best information available and there is an imperative to act upon it, given the challenges the HIV epidemic poses for South Africa's development. Government must now meet its Constitutional duty to ensure the rights to life, dignity and health-care. It must develop and implement a plan which at a minimum incorporates voluntary counselling and testing, mother-to-child transmission prevention of HIV, improved management of sexually transmitted infections and highly active antiretroviral therapy. By working together all sectors of South African society can alleviate the worst effects of the HIV epidemic. We must act now! (The CARE research was commissioned by the TAC. We wish to thank Leigh Johnson, Professor Rob Dorrington, the Centre for Actuarial Research, Alex Van Den Heever, Chris Raubenheimer and all the health care professionals and researchers who provided information for this work. This research will be submitted to NEDLAC, the Health Ministry, SANAC and provincial health departments.) The full CARE report is available from www.commerce.uct.ac.za/care A fact sheet explaining this research in more detail is available upon request from: info@tac.org.za. It will be available for download from the TAC website (www.tac.org.za) by 17:00 tomorrow. Subscriptions and desubscriptions are now automatic: To subscribe: Send an empty email to news-subscribe@tac.org.za To unsubscribe: Send an empty email to news-unsubscribe@tac.org.za ************************************