Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Miami Herald - March 10, 2008
All that is needed now is for the House and Senate to pass the bill and send it to the president.
Triple the funding
The bipartisan bill would more than triple the funding of the original President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, as many Africans call the program. It would expand treatment not only for AIDS but also for tuberculosis and malaria, diseases that often attack AIDS patients. PEPFAR would reach additional countries threatened by the epidemic, including in the Caribbean.
Altogether, the bill would authorize $50 billion over the next five years to prevent transmission of HIV, the AIDS virus. It would pay for treatment for people with HIV, training for 140,000 health workers and taking care of children orphaned by the disease. Congress has provided $19 billion in the program's first five years, although it originally authorized only $15 billion. The money has been well spent.
Tough compromises centered on funding for abstinence programs and restrictions on sex workers and family planning, including contraception. Health experts note that infected prostitutes can rapidly spread HIV and shouldn't be ignored. Abstinence programs alone won't stop unprotected sex.
The bill instead requires "balanced funding" for abstinence, fidelity and condom programs, three traditional AIDS-prevention strategies. These programs will have to be be proven effective, too. It also allows funding U.S.-supported family-planning programs to do AIDS testing and counseling services. But the policy against sex workers and contraception funds remains. This is what happens in a compromise.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, is the House Foreign Affairs Committee's ranking member. She says the committee's bill maintains core values important to both sides. Neither side gets all that it wants. Overall, the bill would expand and improve an already good AIDS-relief program.
The ultimate goal is to create a consensus that will pass muster in the House and Senate and be signed by the president. Whatever the shortcomings, President Bush's AIDS-relief program has been a success. Many laud it as great foreign policy. It also has alleviated a human catastrophe in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet more effort is needed to to stop the worldwide threat of AIDS.
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