Why aren the dollars used to fight infectious disease in Africa better spent?
Keusch: Well, to some extent, there’s a need for donor agencies to be seen as doing something useful. And it’s the sexy announcements about a new drug, rather than building a rural clinic or a system to get a drug to those clinics, that attracts attention. So, I think that’s part of it. Simon: Also, in terms of the imbalance towards HIV/AIDS, there’s a community associated with this disease — that’s people living with AIDS, that’s program personnel, that’s research scientists, that’s a big, global pharmaceutical industry — with a lot of political clout. You know, in 2001, we had a special session at the United Nations on HIV. We’ve never had a special session on diarrheal disease or pneumonia. There’s a real power in the political movement that has made HIV truly a global issue. And I think there are good reasons for that. It is an important issue. But we don’t have the lobbies for child survival. We don’t have a diarrhea lobby, you know, or a pneumonia lobby. And is that global moveme