Newsday, April 27, 2001
Laurie Garrett, Staff Writer

Annan's plea, issued as the annual meeting of the Organization for African Unity convened in Abuja, Nigeria, resonated in Congress as Secretary of State Colin Powell testified before the House Appropriations Committee.

"On the subject of HIV/AIDS," Powell told the committee, "it is a pandemic of the worst kind. It is not just a health crisis; it's an economic crisis.

"It's a crisis of survival for not only families, but in some cases for whole nations, who see up to a third of their population already affected by this terrible disease."

Powell said the AIDS pandemic is one of President George W. Bush's "first priorities. We have been meeting on this regularly over the last two weeks."

However, neither Powell nor other members of the Bush administration would talk of dollar amounts yesterday. The administration's proposed budget calls for a reduction in domestic AIDS care expenditures.

Annan called for creation of a "war chest," as he called it, funded by the world's richest nations to the tune of $7 billion to $10 billion a year. Current combined AIDS donations from all sources to Africa and other beleaguered nations comes to roughly $1 billion. And advocates for global health recently called for several billion dollars a year from the United States.

The OAU summit is Africa's most important political meeting. This year's meeting is the first to focus on AIDS. In so doing it signals a rising level of anxiety among African leaders, many of whom preside over countries in which more than 10 percent of the population is infected with HIV.

"The gravity and magnitude of the HIV/AIDS pandemic need no overstating," OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim said yesterday at the summit. "We have reached a critical point for our very survival.

"We need to confront this challenge head on and to mobilize ourselves in total...We need to enter into a combat mode. Like in all combat situations, and in the particular cases of defending our very survival, all our energy and resources must be mobilized and effectively deployed."

Annan said funds are needed to treat HIV patients, prevent in utero transmission of the virus from mother to child, care for the millions of children already orphaned and carry out campaigns to prevent further spread of the virus.

"This is a time of hope, and potentially a turning point," he said, noting that the world has awakened to Africa's AIDS plight. "Africa is no longer being left to face this disaster alone."

Sources close to Annan indicated yesterday that the UN leader had been in contact with Powell, and there was optimism that the secretary of state would issue a dollar commitment yesterday. But Powell limited his remarks to restating what he wrote this week to the European Union: "We have doubled our international assistance program from last year to over $450 million for fiscal year 2001."

Powell added that "we have some ideas as to how such a trust fund might operate with American leadership," aimed "ultimately to find a cure."

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