Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Sunday, December 7, 2003
Paul Busharizi
Thompson visited Botswana, Zambia, Kenya and Uganda, stopping in Nairobi to launch a partnership between business and a U.S.-backed AIDS project aimed at encouraging big firms to help fund the battle against HIV/AIDS in the developing world.
"From what we have learned there is no question in my mind that those resources are going to come and come very fast," Thompson told a news conference in Entebbe, 40 km (25 miles) from the Ugandan capital, late on Saturday.
"We expect to make tremendous progress in that direction in 12 to 18 months...This trip has been a ten on a scale of one to ten, everyone has come away with a new perspective on the problem."
The partnership brings the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria together with the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS -- which includes almost 130 international businesses.
Nine firms have already pledged to use their resources in poor countries where they operate, though there are no details of how much they will invest.
Members of the large delegation of U.S. officials and business leaders touring Africa with Thompson said it was clear more drugs and better infrastructure were needed on a continent where an estimated 26.6 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS.
"We have learned that the countries we have visited need a massive investment in infrastructure to deliver life-saving drugs to the affected," Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund, said.
"But even with the current situation there is a great potential to scale up the availability of anti-retroviral treatments to the affected."
The Global Fund was set up in 2001 as a kind of global war chest against the three big infectious diseases by the United Nations and the G8 group of rich nations.
AIDS, TB and malaria kill nearly six million people each year, mostly in poor countries.
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