Aids campaigners were yesterday hailing America’s ”work of mercy” after President George Bush pledged to treble spending on combating Aids in some of the world’s poorest countries to $15-billion over the next five years.
The size of the increase announced in Tuesday’s state of the union speech surprised campaigners who have spent years berating the administration for its stingy response to the epidemic. It prompted calls for other rich countries, including Britain, to follow suit.
Stephen Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for Aids in Africa, praised the announcement as a ”dramatic signal” that the US was ready to join the global fight against the disease.
”It gives leverage to activists everywhere to keep the pressure on. It transforms the response. It opens the floodgates of hope,” he said.
Reversing its previous reluctance to fund treatment to the 42-million people infected with Aids worldwide, the White House said some of the funds would go towards providing drugs for HIV sufferers and preventing mothers transmitting the disease to their babies.
”This is a breakthrough, and we understand that the majority of this money is to be spent on antiretrovirals and treatment — a real shift for a conservative administration,” said Bono, U2’s vocalist, who is a leading campaigner on issues affecting Africa. ”The president is recognising that Aids in Africa is not a cause, it’s an emergency.”
In an editorial in the Washington Post earlier this week, the rock star said that the response to the crisis was a chance to ”show what America is for, not just what America is against”.
Invoking the spirit of the compassionate conservatism he promised Americans in the untroubled days before September 11 2001, Bush described his emergency plan for aids relief as a ”work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of Africa”.
The White House said the plan would prevent 7-million new Aids infections, treat at least two million of the 30-million people in Africa infected with the disease, and provide care for millions of Aids orphans.
”Antiretroviral drugs can extend life for many years,” Bush said last night. ”And the cost of those drugs has dropped from $12 000 a year to under $300 a year — which places a tremendous opportunity within our grasp. Seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many.”
Aids activists pointed out that the fall in drug prices is a result of competition from cheap generic manufacturers, which the US is trying to curb to protect its powerful pharmaceuticals industry.
”We were pleased with the commitment to start spending serious money but it highlights a contradiction in the administration’s approach,” said Robert Weissman, co-director of Essential Action, an American corporate accountability group. ”On the one hand the president is proposing a plan which relies on the benefits of generic competition, and on the other his administration is working to undermine the trade rules which allow that competition.”
Activists were also disappointed that only $1-billion of the new money will go to the Global Fund for Combating Aids, TB and Malaria, the main international body charged with fighting the epidemic. Instead most of the funds will be channeled into bilateral programmes in 14 mostly African countries, including Ivory Coast, Botswana, Ethiopia, Guyana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
”We are very concerned that will leave the fund vastly underfunded and undermine its success,” said Dr Paul Zeitz, Executive Director of the Global Aids Alliance.
However, lobbyists hope that the US move would prompt more generous donations to the Global Fund, which has just $2,8-billion of the $6,3-billion it needs to pay for existing programmes in the next two years. Britain promised $200-million to the Fund when it was launched two years ago.
”This is a war that needs everyone to play their part. We’re knocking on many doors; one of them belongs to Tony Blair, who has a passion for Africa,” Bono said. ”He needs to show leadership on this by increasing UK spending to $1-billion a year for Aids, TB and malaria.”
Peter Piot, the head of the United Nations Aids programme, said the US announcement was an ”encouraging sign” of its commitment.
”This initiative should spur other wealthy countries to increase their support for global Aids efforts,” he said. ”Aids is rapidly wiping out decades of development and contributing to regional instability. The case for increasing action against the epidemic has never been stronger or more urgent.” – Guardian Unlimited Â