HIV/AIDS Treatment and Prevention in India: Modeling the Cost and Consequences

In 2004 India has as many HIV-infected people as any country in the world. And scientists tell us that an effective vaccine against AIDS is unlikely for at least another decade. Yet there is hope that the devastation of the AIDS epidemic can be slowed and even reversed in India.

The report analyzes three alternative plans for using and financing antiretroviral therapy (ART) in India. These alternative plans, or “scenarios,” are a minimally interventionist plan to strengthen the private sector’s ability to manage ART, a moderately interventionist plan to provide free ART to HIV-positive pregnant women and, if they are also infected, to their spouses and children, and a more generous plan to finance ART for the poorest 40 percent of all Indians with HIV infection.