Americans Support Prevention Programs & Access To Medicines To Address the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic.

Most Americans (58%) believe the global HIV/AIDS epidemic is “worse” today than it was five years ago, according to the results of a new Harris Interactive poll of 2,169 U.S. adults conducted online between July 20 and 22, 2004 for The Wall Street Journal Online’s Health Industry Edition.

Most adults also believe that more could be done by both the public and private sectors to provide HIV/AIDS patients with access to medicines.

More than eight in ten adults (85%) agree that, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should do more to get new treatments for HIV/AIDS to the market quickly” (55% agree strongly with this statement).

Three in four adults (74%) agree that, “The U.S. government needs to do more to provide developing nations with access to affordable drugs, including generics, for the treatment of HIV/AIDS (42% agree strongly with this statement).
Only three in ten adults (30%) agree that, “Drug companies are doing all they can to provide HIV/AIDS drugs to the communities and patients who need them most” (26% disagree strongly with this statement).

The American public also believes in global prevention programs. Eight in ten (79%) agree that, “The best way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS is with preventative programs such as sex education, condom distribution and the distribution of clean needles to intravenous drug users” (48% agree strongly with this statement).

If the American public were in charge of government spending on the global prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS they would distribute funds across a variety of programs, but their major focus would be on prevention and the care of children orphaned by the disease; on average, these two programs would account for 34% and 27% of funding, respectively. On average, the American public would spend 24% of funds on treatment of the disease and 14% for end-of-life care for AIDS patients.

“The American public is concerned about both the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS globally and they firmly believe that both the public and private sectors should be doing more to provide treatment to HIV/AIDS patients outside the U.S.,” says Katherine Binns, senior vice president of health care at Harris Interactive.