Like Lee Wildes's group in San Francisco, it sends drugs to people with HIV in poor countries. Now, many such programs have joined under the umbrella of the newly formed AIDS Empowerment and Treatment International. Working in the Peruvian port city of El Callao, which has the highest rate of HIV in that South American country, Romero runs a support group for infected sex workers and another for HIV-positive mothers. But those programs might never have been born. Three years ago, Romero had tuberculosis, pneumocystis pneumonia, and a fungal infection called thrush in his mouth and esophagus.
Many countries impose tariffs on medicine, adding to their cost.
Yet medical infrastructure, from trained staff to basic laboratory equipment, is often lacking. He says that patients sleep two or even three to a bed in his Nairobi hospital, and that drug shortages are common. If my patients were able to get food, that would be a major improvement. At the moment, though, the lion's share of attention is on the most expensive drugs, the antiretrovirals that attack HIV directly. But most Africans survive on less than two dollars a day, and they lack even basic care.