The Economist cites CGD senior fellow Mead Over on U.S. foreign aid for HIV/AIDS.
From the article:
"However, there is no plausible rejoinder to another part of the critics' observation, which is that the treatment programme is an open-ended financial commitment. Since the drugs only control AIDS, but do not cure it, they have to be taken indefinitely. Indeed, the WHO report acknowledges that 2.5m people became infected last year. At the moment, those new infections are almost balanced by 2.1m deaths. But as more people are treated, the death rate will fall. Bearing all this in mind Mead Over, of the Centre for Global Development, a think-tank in Washington, DC, calculates that American-financed spending on HIV treatment could soar to $12 billion a year by 2016, up from about $2 billion today. That amount would represent over half of America's total foreign-aid budget for all causes."