In a New York Times op-ed piece Daniel Halperin, a senior research scientist at Harvard School of Public Health, argues that funding focus on AIDS, TB, and malaria diverts resources away from addressing public health issues that yield the causes of devastating yet preventable diseases.
He writes:
If one were to ask the people of virtually any African village (outside some 10 countries devastated by AIDS) what their greatest concerns are, the answer would undoubtedly be the less sensational but more ubiquitous ravages of hunger, dirty water and environmental devastation. The real-world needs of Africans struggling to survive should not continue to be subsumed by the favorite causes du jour of well-meaning yet often uninformed Western donors.
Daniel is absolutely right. The distorting effects of excessive funding for HIV is extremely damaging in many countries, not least because it sucks the best people away from work that badly needed in the local context. See my blog: http://www.wisdomofwhores.com
I tend to agree, in the least that funds are not properly distributed; most of the money goes to retro viral drugs to sustain the lifes of those already infected, some of that money could go to educating those at risk, condoms and other preventative measures, also research to find a cure.