Doc Encourages Different Approach to AIDS in Africa

A top HIV expert says the African continent cannot fight the virus with the same methods used in Western countries.

Ernest Darkoh, MD, said that Western nations are big on spending large amounts of money on research, while African governments are left with far less resources and therefore cannot deal with HIV and AIDS in the same way as nations like the U.S. or U.K.

"The developing world had been characterized by a lot of funding but often very little accountability for results of that funding," Darkoh said, according to CNN. "And it's important to deliver the results, because people are dying."

Darkoh is the chairman and founding partner of BroadReach Healthcare, which works with governments to quell the epidemic in Africa. In 2001 he helped launch Africa's largest public-sector initiative to treat people with HIV. He said before he started, 38.5% of Botswana's adult population was infected with HIV. By 2006 the program had a hand in preventing most HIV-related deaths in the country.