HIV/AIDS THREATENING REGION’S ECONOMIES

An economist from the University of the West Indies is calling for increased spending in the response to HIV/AIDS.

Dr Roger McLean, of the University of the West Indies Health Economics Unit, on Thursday said the money being spent on HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean had not crossed one percent of countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) although the virus was threatening to erode productivity and undermine development. “The scale of investment must match the scale of the dimension of the problem,” said McLean to educators from the region attending the conference “HIV/AIDS: The Power of Education”,  at the Hilton Hotel Thursday. Referring to the TT$500 million which Government will spend over the next five years on its HIV/AIDS national response, the economist stated these funds, when “put into context” were a mere 0.2 percent of TT’s GDP. 

In his presentation,”Social and Economic Impact of the Epidemic,” he highlighted the impact of the virus on several levels in society. HIV/AIDS influenced the individual as family member, income earner, consumer, taxpayer and community member, he said. “While one individual is impacted on, a number of larger roles are impacted on.” Death and illness, he added, would affect key sectors with the labour intensive sectors being the most affected. “We are looking at the situation where supply of labour will be impacted on as people are lost to HIV/AIDS while the demand will change as individuals adjust their consumption patterns.” Predicting a domino effect, the UWI economist said GDP and government expenditure would also be influenced having thus an impact on the future of education, health, training and the standard of living.  McLean also predicted that the gap between required expenditure and actual expenditure by the State would widen.

The impact of HIV/AIDS, he said, would also be felt on public investment (State spending on roads etc) which he noted were critical to ensuring the arrival of private investors. McLean said the response to HIV/AIDS continues to be led by health care and health institutions, but argued that it was a development problem and the response should be mutli-sectoral and coordinated. McLean said the size of countries made the region vulnerable, adding to their vulnerability to  hurricanes. “We cannot afford to have HIV/AIDS hovering over us while we have variables over which we have no control,” he observed.