Readers of this blog know that I comment periodically on PEPFAR, the world's largest AIDS program which is all but invisible online. In August of 2004 I listed six suggestions for PEPFAR's communications strategy (none of which has been implemented). In December of 2004, PEPFAR led the list of ten information resources requiring improvement.

Perhaps the most amazing fact about PEPFAR online is that the main PEPFAR page, the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, is almost impossible to find through the search engines. It doesn't appear in the top 300 listings for a Google search on "PEPFAR". There are two reasons for its invisibility. First, relatively few other sites link to it (Google shows only 138 linking domains, compared to 208 to this little blog site, or over 1200 for the Global Fund). Second, and more consequential, the "PEPFAR home page" doesn't mention the word "PEPFAR" -- only the "President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief". Thus anyone searching on "PEPFAR" won't find it.

It is hard to imagine PEPFAR being programmatically or politically successful without a better online strategy. The good news is that the information problems which plague PEPFAR are relatively easy to fix. Once there is a will, there is clearly a way.

Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, doesn't mince words. In articulate and piercing tones, he consistently calls for more global attention to the AIDS pandemic. In a new series of lectures in Canada, he articulates his current views about the looming devastation many countries will face in coming decades:

It's simply impossible to tear the productive generations out of the heart of a country without facing an incomparable crisis.

In fighting against AIDS, Lewis at some point will exhaust patience (his own or others'). Nonetheless, the greatest ally of AIDS in developing countries is indifference, and Stephen Lewis does his best to eschew global indifference.

More information in KaiserNetwork Daily Report.

Does AIDS crowd out funding for other global infectious diseases? The current issue of PloS Medicine has an article which discusses "rapid impact interventions", a strategy which combines effective treatments for seven common infectious diseases in Africa. Because costs are low ($0.40 per year per patient, vs. nearly $1,000 for ARV -- see graph at left) and the treatments are proven, the authors argue that funding for these interventions is a highly effective strategy in combatting poverty.