29 January 2008
Addis Ababa — US President George W.Bush is set propose flat-funding his own President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in the face of worsening AIDS Crisis, according to a net work of advocacy groups.
In his final State of the Union address on Monday, Bush was expected to propose spending $30 billion over five years in global AIDS funding, just weeks after signing a bill to invest nearly $6 billion in 2008 on the same AIDS programs, Health GAP (Global Access Project) a US-based network of AIDS, health and human rights advocates said.
The net work said Bush initially proposed $15 billion over five years for PEPFAR in 2003, and Congress has authorized $19 billion for PEPFAR from FY 2004-2008.
"Under the rhetorical guise of doubling, President Bush is setting us back in the fight against AIDS by proposing to flat fund the flagship program of his Administration," Jose de Marco, a Philadelphia community organizer and board member of Health GAP said in a media release ahead of Bushes planed speech.
In order to win the fight against the epidemic and to keep solemn promises the Bush Administration made at the G8 and the UN to ensure universal access to treatment, Congress will need to contribute at least $59 billion for AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria over the next 5 years," added Health GAP board member Professor Patricia Siplon of St. Michael's College in Burlington, VT.
Millions of lives depend on increased funding by the U.S. and other global partners.
In Ethiopia, PEPFAR has been active in the fight against HIV/AIDS and prevention and care, people affected by the epidemic.
The net work fears the President of flat-funding PEPFAR will put those lives in jeopardy.
"It is up to Congress to step up and fight for full funding for PEPFAR," it stressed.
In the 2003 authorization of PEPFAR, the U.S. committed to provide treatment for two million people across 15 countries by the end of FY 2008.
President Bush's plan for the next five years of the program, between FY 2009-2013, would expand treatment by only 500,000 additional people, the network laments..
This modest increase in treatment falls woefully short of what is needed. Expanding treatment for 500,000 people over five years is a dramatic slow-down in the pace of PEPFAR-funded AIDS treatment scale up," the network stated.
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