The economics of effective AIDS treatment in Thailand.

Introduction: The speed with which Thailand has scaled up public provision of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been unprecedented, with more than 80 000 individuals on treatment at the end of 2006 through Thailand's National Access to Antiretroviral Program for People Living with HIV/AIDS (NAPHA). This paper projects the cost effectiveness, the affordability and the future fiscal burden of NAPHA to the government of Thailand under several different policy scenarios until the year 2025.

Methods: An economic/epidemiological model of access to ART was constructed, and this composite model was calibrated to economic and epidemiological data from Thailand and other countries.