AIDS claims thousands while Africans wait for Western help

Social justice news
August 2002

AIDS claims thousands while Africans wait for Western help
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Bishops concerned about "homeland security's" threat to immigrants
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AIDS claims thousands while Africans wait for Western help
Only in one in one thousand AIDS patients in Africa receive the antiretroviral drugs that have extended the life spans of people living with AIDS in the U.S. by years and even decades.

The U.N. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria aims to deliver antiretroviral drugs to three million people in the developing world by 2005. So far, though, the fund has only raised $2.8 billion of a $10 billion goal. While the fund waits for the rest of the cash, every 10 seconds someone dies of AIDS.

The U.N.'s international conference on AIDS in July saw Western leaders like former President Bill Clinton challenging developed nations to contribute their share to the fund. In his speech to the conference, Clinton said the U.S. needs to increase its contribution by $2 billion, an amount equal to "less than two months of the Afghan war, less than 3 percent of the requested increase for defense and homeland defense in the current budget." He also said it is the duty of wealthy nations to complete negotiations with pharmaceutical drug companies to supply the needed drug therapies to Africa.

"Two years ago in Durban, [South Africa,] the world pledged to end inequities in treatment. We have not done that," Clinton said. "The world is being consumed by a disease that is preventable with drugs that turn a death sentence into a chronic illness."

On the closing day of the conference, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to increase the U.S.'s current pledge of $500 million to the global fund to $1 billion in fiscal year 2003 and $1.2 billion in 2004. Total spending on AIDS prevention and treatment would total $4.9 billion over two years.

The House passed legislation in December that designates $1.3 billion total spending on AIDS programs for 2003. The bills now move to committee where the House and Senate differences in the bill will be ironed out.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) urges Catholics to contact their Senators and Representatives to support more funding for AIDS treatment and prevention, particularly targeting those on the committees who will negotiate the compromises to the bill.

The Senate bill also provides for debt relief to developing nations that would limit poor countries debt payments to 10 percent of its revenues, and 5 percent for countries with public health crises, an element the USCCB says is critical. The House bill (H.R. 2069) does not include debt relief, but there is a separate House bill (H.R. 4524) that the USCCB says has "substantial bipartisan support" and similar language to the Senate's. The USCCB hopes that committee members will see this as tacit support for the relief and allow the debt relief package to be included in the AIDS legislation.—Tara Dix

For more information:
U.N. International Conference on AIDS
International AIDS Society
Global Panel reviews AIDS Conference
U.S. bishops' statement

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