Many people have to change their treatment programme because their virus has become resistant to the treatment. But the newer the treatments, the more expensive they are: between 1,200 and 2,000 $US per patient per year. With over 4.5 billion people living on an annual income of between 200 and 1,200 $US, vital treatments are simply out of reach of most of the sick people in the developing countries. And what goes for antiretrovirals also goes for drugs used to fight opportunistic infections, treatments for other pathologies and biological examinations.

The means required to finance the global fight against AIDS have not been sufficiently mobilised. UNOAIDS estimates that the cost of an effective global fight against the pandemic will be 22 billion dollars a year from 2008. In 2005, a third of the sums promised had not been received. France, which supports multilateral aid, is the second largest financier of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, after the United States. France was behind the air transport tax initiative aimed at financing the fight against the three pandemics and instrumental in creating the international drug purchasing facility UNITAID.

However, these contributions are made to the detriment of bilateral aid, which is intended to reinforce health systems in the South. Only Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden exceed the target of 0.7 % of Gross National Income recommended by the United Nations for Government Aid to Development (GAD). France is committed to achieving that target by 2012, with an intermediary total of 0.5 % in 2007. On average, France has dedicated only 4 % of its GAD to the health sector, compared to 11 % for countries on the OECD development aid committee.