A Snapshot of HIV in Pakistan On the brink of an epidemic

Abstract

As the life expectancy of patients with HIV/AIDS in developing countries steadily approaches that of uninfected persons, the effort to fight and cure AIDS has lost priority to other top killers (Hogg, Lima, Sterne, Grabar, & Battegay, 2008). Therefore, the total funding for HIV/AIDS has declined in the past few years (UNAIDS, 2010). Although this may be construed as a welcome change, this news does not bode well for the developing world - particularly for countries like Pakistan, where the fight against HIV/AIDS has just begun. In Pakistan, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS has steadily risen in the past decade among vulnerable groups such as sex workers and drug users. Despite the best efforts of national and international authorities to prevent a generalized epidemic, with the recent floods in Pakistan and the overall decline in HIV/AIDS funding, health care workers are finding themselves with increasingly tighter budgets. Thus, Pakistan stands at the crossroads that developed nations were at just a few decades ago, but with fewer and ever dwindling resources.