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The White
House decision to fund a global effort against AIDS
with what it costs the US to produce one F-22 fighter
jet is a death sentence for millions of Africans,
a policy group charged.
Africa
Action denounced the Bush Administration's proposal
to contribute a meager $200 million to a global
fund for HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases
now being established through the United Nations.
“In
the face of what will soon be the worst plague in
human history, it's tragic that the richest country
in human history is unwilling to contribute its
fair share to finance the solution,” the group’s
executive director Salih Booker said in view of
the White House's intended contribution to the proposed
$10 billion U.N. fund.
“Under-funding
this U.N. initiative means writing off the lives
of millions of Africans and others living with HIV
and AIDS,” according to Booker, who heads the
oldest advocacy organization in the US concerned
with African affairs. “But signing death sentences
especially for black people is nothing new to this
president,” he added.
The UN
initiative is aimed at uniting prevention efforts
and producing life-savings medicines. The effort
follows the recent drop in prices for anti-AIDS
drugs. The price reductions themselves are the result
of the growing protests of anti-AIDS activists worldwide
and the market debut of generic versions, produced
in developing countries, of the previously expensive
Western-patented anti-retroviral drugs.
The proposed
fund also follows the emerging global consensus
that the world's AIDS crisis is solvable if patent
laws are adjusted to ensure access to affordable
medicines and if adequate global funding is available.
According
to Africa Action President Wyatt Tee Walker, the
failure to prevent AIDS-related deaths when the
means are available, “will increasingly be
recognized for what it is—the equivalent of
mass murder.”
For two
decades, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has raced ahead of
the global response. Over 50 million people have
been infected, and 17 million have died in Africa.
Although there is no cure yet, antiretroviral drugs
can now turn a certain death sentence for millions
into years of productive life.
AIDS
is more than a disease, the group insists. It calls
the pandemic a manifestation of a global apartheid
which allows race, gender and class to filter access
to the full spectrum of human rights, including
the availability of healthcare.
The policy
group, launched in March this year, is made up of
three of the oldest US organizations devoted to
analysis and advocacy on African affairs. It expects
to launch a campaign to change US policies toward
the AIDS crisis on the continent during the U.N.
General Assembly’s Special Session on HIV/AIDS
next month.
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