Has better health care led to higher HIV prevalence in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Type Working Paper
Title Has better health care led to higher HIV prevalence in Sub-Saharan Africa?
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2006
Abstract
HIV/AIDS is a disease for which we ourselves are the vector. Consequently, a high prevalence of the disease in the population is likely to generate a high incidence of new infections. This paper argues that in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the prevalence of other fatal diseases is high, there is a counter-intuitive effect of health care spending: such spending increases the life expectancy of the infected, and so drives up the prevalence of HIV in the population. The link between prevalence and incidence implies that high-quality health care may thus inadvertently increase HIV transmission, leading to elevated HIV prevalence in the course of an epidemic

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