Despite India’s enormous population, it would be cost-effective to fight its growing AIDS epidemic by testing all 800 million sexually active adults in the country every five years and treating all those infected, a new statistical study has concluded.
The study, published online in May by PLoS One, notes that testing there costs only $3.33, and that first-line antiretroviral therapy is about $100 a year. The World Health Organization measure for a medical intervention’s cost-effectiveness is whether it saves one year of life for less than three times the per capita gross domestic product. In India’s case, that is $3,900 per year-of-life saved.
