Thursday, December 1, 2011
Extraordinary progress has been made in the fight against AIDS. The number of new infections worldwide continues to drop, and nearly half of those already infected have access to life-prolonging HIV drugs. But the epidemic still kills 1.8 million people every year. This is no time to be giving up the fight.
President Barack Obama will observe World AIDS Day on Thursday with two former presidents, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, at George Washington University. Obama should use the occasion to promote Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's idea of putting the world on the path of an "AIDS-free generation."
It's an ambitious goal, especially since the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced last week that it is canceling new grants and won't be able to make new funding available until 2014. But cutting back on the U.S. contribution to help fight AIDS will cost us far more in the long run, as we deal with global unrest and widespread HIV infections both at home and abroad.
A strong case can be made that diverting some U.S. defense dollars to fight AIDS would help stabilize the economies of developing nations and reduce the risk of global unrest.
Obama should enlist Bush and Clinton to help him raise additional private donations and to solicit contributions from other nations that are in a position to increase their foreign aid.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS anticipates it will need $24 billion by 2015 to continue its current efforts to fight the epidemic. Donations fell from $8.7 billion in 2009 to $7.6 billion in 2010, causing the public-private agency to put the brakes on funding new grants. The Global Fund pays for about half of the AIDS drugs used by those infected in the world's poorest countries.
But HIV/AIDS isn't just an African problem. Nearly 20,000 people die of AIDS in the United States every year, and more than 1 million people are living with HIV. Despite education efforts, nearly 50,000 people will become infected in the next year, with about 20 percent unaware that they have become infected.
Closer to home, HIV diagnoses have remained stable for about 10 years in Santa Clara County, as Sally Lehrman's column below indicates. But roughly 50 people in the county are diagnosed with HIV every year. Santa Clara County residents shouldn't rest until that number has been reduced to zero.
It's especially frustrating that we now have access to treatments that substantially lower the transmission rate of HIV.
As Hillary Clinton relayed in her speech to the National Institutes of Health on Nov. 8, giving antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive people cuts the transmission rate by up to 96 percent.
That's a stunning advancement. It gives real hope that someday, perhaps in the relatively near future, our children's children might live in a world without the threat of this terrible epidemic.
One year ago, Obama outlined a new U.S. strategy to make this nation a place where "new HIV infections are rare." We've got a ways to go.
The president should renew that commitment Thursday and rededicate this nation to fighting the catastrophic effects of AIDS.
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