Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Chicago Tribune - January 11, 2000
Paul Salopek, Tribune Foreign Correspondent
Vice President Al Gore, the health ministers of several African nations and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned the council that Africa's AIDS woes are reaching a point where they imperil political stability.
Gore promised that the White House would ask Congress for an additional $150 million in U.S. funding for vaccine research and prevention programs in Africa, and that it will convene a meeting of business leaders in Africa to start developing prevention programs for the workplace.
"We tend to think of a threat to security in terms of war and peace," Gore said in the first speech by a U.S. vice president to the 15-member body. "Yet no one can doubt that the havoc wreaked and the toll exacted by HIV/AIDS do threaten our security."
AIDS activists applauded the meeting, but some questioned whether Gore's participation was designed to deflect criticism of the administration's drug policies in Africa. Last year the U.S. threatened trade sanctions against AIDS-plagued South Africa when that country moved to manufacture cheaper copies of American AIDS medicines.
"When 10 people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected every minute; when 11 million children have already become orphans and many must be raised by other children; when a single disease threatens everything from economic strength to peacekeeping--we clearly face a security threat of the greatest magnitude," Gore told the council. "I think that it's a start that after 4,000 meetings of the UN Security Council, this is the first one that addresses a health issue," he said.
Namibia's health minister, Dr. Libertine Amathila, said AIDS was devastating his country's economy, robbing families of breadwinners and children of their parents.
"It is immoral that the worst-affected continent has the lowest access to care," she said, urging wealthy countries to make drugs to treat those infected with HIV available at prices Africans can afford.
She cited statistics from UNAIDS, a Geneva-based organization of epidemiologists and statisticians who study AIDS, that show only $165 million was spent on AIDS prevention in Africa in 1996, while estimates suggest that between $800 million and $2.5 billion a year is needed.
"It is worth pondering how the international community successfully mobilized hundreds of billions of dollars over the last few years to minimize the impact of that `other' virus--Y2K," the executive director of UNAIDS, Dr. Peter Piot, told the council.
Gore announced that the U.S. was pledging an extra $100 million in assistance to programs fighting AIDS around the world. About $50 million more would be earmarked for a vaccine program that not only included AIDS but other infectious diseases as well, such as malaria.
"We welcome any show of commitment by the administration, but we see this as an attempt to deflect attention from their bullying tactics to deny poor countries access to AIDS medicines around the world," said Asia Russell, a spokeswoman with ACT UP, which has demonstrated against Gore on the campaign trail.
Russell said $150 million "was a drop in the bucket" for Africa's estimated 30 million carriers of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The domestic budget for AIDS drug assistance programs totals $1 billion for about 100,000 people, she said.
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