HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA

“On World AIDS Day and throughout the year, we stand with our friends and partners around the world in the urgent struggle to fight this virus, comfort those who are affected, and save lives.”

- President George W. Bush
World AIDS Day
December 1, 2006

On January 28, 2003, President Bush announced the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR. This initiative authorized President Bush to spend $15 billion dollars over 5 years to expand global HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria programs. With PEPFAR, the USA became the biggest supporter for the fight against AIDS/HIV in the world. $10 billion of the budget goes to 15 focus countries, which are home to approximately half of the world’s 39 million HIV-positive people. These countries are Botswana, Ethiopia, Haiti, Mozambique, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Guyana, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania and Vietnam. With the $10 billion budget they intend to prevent 7 million new infections, treat 2 million people living with AIDS related illnesses, and provide care and support for 10 million persons affected by AIDS. Concerning other countries across the world, the U.S. Emergency Plan will encourage bold leadership at every level to fight HIV/AIDS, apply best practices within their bilateral programs in concert with host governments’ national HIV/AIDS strategies and encourage all partners to coordinate, adhere to sound management practices and harmonize monitoring and evaluation efforts.

PEPFAR is currently lead by Dr Mark Dybul, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, who is directly responsible to the Secretary of State. Before Dr Dybul started his leadership, PEPFAR was coordinated by Ambassador Randall Tobias, who held the post from October 2003 until early 2006 and later left to become America’s first ever Director of Foreign Assistance, as well as head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

PEPFAR spends 20% of the budget on prevention programs to slow the spread of epidemic. They support the ABC approach, prevention of mother to child transmission interventions, programs on blood safety, injection safety, secondary prevention, counseling and education. Of the 20% spent on prevention, one third of the budget must be spent on abstinence-only campaigns, what many people find controversial.

PEPFAR also provides help to people already infected with HIV/AIDS to maintain financial stability. Special services are provided for the unique needs of women, including rape and abuse victims as well as for orphans and vulnerable children.

The Emergency Plan is supported by wide range of national and international groups and agencies, such as the Harvard University, Columbia University’s International Center for AIDS Care & Treatment Programs, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the AIDS Relief consortium of Catholic Relief Services.

In October 2008 PEPFAR 5-year plan expires, however U.S. government intents to continue funding affected countries. President Bush announced in May 2007 that the U.S. Government intents to double the initiative’s budget to $30 billion in order to cover the five years from 2008 to 2013. He also emphasized the need to shift from an emergency plan to a sustainable response, and suggested new prevention, treatment and care targets.

This is the question we submitted to the CNN+YouTube GOP Presidential debate. It was a question about President Bush’s edict that a large fraction of the PEPFAR money go exclusively to promote ABSTINENCE and FIDELITY as a preventive measure. The dificulty however is that the edict from President Bush is stifling the free initiative of experts in their response to the changing dynamics of the HIV/AIDS fight. Our position that Public Health policy should be left exclusively to the wisdom of health experts not politicians in Washington.

This is a snippet of the trouble that we went through just to record our question. Its halarious. Enjoy!!

26 of July. Today was a wonderful day of working. We got our question taped and edited which was a big relief. It was really stressful for me (Heather) because I got kind of nervous on camera. Recording the question was a great part of my experience in this program.I overcame my fear of the camera . We started working on the ABC video this morning. Mojca has been working very diligently on the ABC video format; however everyone has been working on the gathering of information and other stuff that need to be included. We are getting acquainted with the US policy on AIDS in Africa and this has opened our eyes to the problems of humanitarian acts. Through our research for the ABC clip, we hope to raise more awareness to the problem of HIV/AIDS in Africa.While we have all been working very hard, we have yet to finish the clip for ABC. There is so much research and work to be done that it is a bit stressful, but EVERY SECOND IS WORTH IT!

The day started with our Advocacy classes. All the BFTF participants learned how to work on debate questions to the CNN+YouTube GOP Presidential debates. Everyone had the opportunity to choose their topics of interest and subsequently divided into various sub-groups based on our various interests. My group,’HIV and AIDS problems in Africa’, has four members; Mojca, Heather, Theo, and Albina. The first thing we did was research on the nature of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa.Each member had a narrow topic of interest to research.It was interesting to work together and learning more about Africa. We all enjoyed working together on this project. The project is opening our eyes to the many problems of Africa and the opportunities to make a difference.

By: Heather Ignatovich