TORONTO — Deep pockets are not so deep when it comes to the AIDS epidemic, Canadian researchers said on Thursday.
They released a study showing that for every person who died in the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, about $35,336 was donated, while $3,333 was given for every person affected by the disaster.
For Hurricane Katrina that struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in August 2005, $33.9 million was donated for every death and $44,286 for every affected person.
But for AIDS, just $1,968 was donated last year for every death, and $153 for each person affected, they told the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto .
"Countries were competing with each other to show who could give most to the tsunami," Timothy Christie of the British Columbia Centre for HIV/AIDS in Vancouver said in an interview.
"In HIV, we have countries reluctantly giving, and what little they do give, we have them put outrageous restrictions on them. Can't fund condoms, can't fund needle exchange, harm reduction," Christie added.
"None of those conditions apply to the tsunami. So there is a moral underpinning that's determining or driving how we do things."
Christie's team said that society needs to re-evaluate how it values human lives.
"Because if you work from the assumption that all human life is equal, of equal value, then you're going to try to respond in an equal way for things," he said. "That doesn't mean tsunamis should receive less. But it means HIV should definitely receive more."
Christie added that he did not mean to disparage funding for other diseases and disasters.
"What we wanted to show is there's a big discrepancy between how some diseases and disasters are treated compared to others and ask the hard questions about why that's allowed to happen," he said.
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